truth for germany - the guilt question of the second world war (udo walendy, 1965)

TRUTH FOR GERMANY

The hypothesis of Germany’s Guilt for the Second World War is refuted. Future historical research could, if need be, amplify the facts compiled in this book,

but it can no longer prove them non-existent. There is available to the public today a considerable number of documents, both from home and abroad, on the foreign policies of the Great Powers before September 1939, as well as a wealth of literature in the memoirs-field of the persons directly involved in the decisions that would lead to the outbreak of the War. Together, they make possible a mosaic-like reconstruction of the events before the outbreak of the War in 1939.

One can assume with an almost virtual certainty that the Victor Powers, starting in 1945, have sifted through the German archives for all the documents incriminating Germany, and during the following twenty years have utilized and published them. It is, therefore, to be expected that the hitherto unpublished documents from the Reich government contain material possibly exonerating Germany. The same would apply to the still unavailable secret archive material of the Allies in East and West.

This book, demonstrating in concentrated format the happenings arising from the manifold connections before the outbreak of the War in Europe in 1939, cannot be glibly brushed aside with the reproach of being “tendentious”. “Tendency” always presupposes unscientific and unscholarly workings, at random “intuitive guesswork”, “interpretation”, insufficient knowledge of sources and the attempt of imposing a “biased” objective.

This book has been published only after an intensive study of sources, taking the greatest care to avoid all guesswork interpretations. It serves not any one particular party, nor is it meant solely for the German people; the aim, rather, is to contribute towards new understandings and cognizance for mankind.

TheGuilt Questionof the SecondWorld War

TRUTHFOR

GERMANY

Udo Walendy

Walendy

TRU

TH FO

R G

ERM

AN

Y

ISBN 978-0-906879-82-5

Historical Review PressPO Box 62, Uckfield, Sussex, TN22 IZY, UK

Website: www.ety.com/HRP

HRP

HRP

978-0-906879-82-5

1

Udo Walendy

TruthFor Germany

The Guilt Questionof the Second

World War

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Translated from the German by E. M. ParkerThis is a new translation, in faithful adherence to the

German original (1965) text.

ISBN 978-0-906879-82-5

Copyright 1981 byVerlag für Volkstum und ZeitgeschichtsforschungP.O. Box 1643, 32590 Vlotho-Weser, Germany

English edition sold in USAby

The Barnes Review BooksP.O.Box 15877 .

Washington D.C. 20003or

The Barnes Review Books27620 Commerce Center Dr. #108

Temecula CA 92590USA

Historical Review PressPO Box 62, Uckfield, Sussex, TN22 IZY, UK

Website: www.ety.com/HRP

2008

Reprinted and retranslated2008


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Contents

Leitmotiv: Truth for Germany ............................................................................ 5Clarification of the War Guilt Question

A Prerequisite for Future Peace .................................................................. 10Versailles 1919 and the Question of War Guilt ................................................ 15Viewpoints on Germany since 1919

Fear in the Service of Disastrous Agitation ................................................ 24Winston Churchill and the Party with the “Philosophy of Blood Lust”..... 45

Vienna, Munich, Prague ..................................................................... 68, 82, 115Poland Wants War

German Territories in Polish Hands ......................................................... 134Poland Demands Territories outside Poland ............................................ 142Poland’s Policies on her MinoritiesFundamental Position ............................................................................... 155Intensified Action 1938-1939 ................................................................... 165Poland’s Foreign Policy on GermanyStrategy ..................................................................................................... 175From “Munich” to the Outbreak of War ................................................... 184The Polish Course of Action against Danzig............................................ 198

Hitler’s Position on PolandFundamental Principle from 1933 onwards ............................................. 212The Proposal to Poland Made 24 October 1938Why Choose this Moment in Time ........................................................... 215The Unfolding of the Negotiations ........................................................... 219From Spring to August 1939 .................................................................... 225

The Armament Level in the Year 1939Germany .................................................................................................... 239

Air Force .......................................................................................... 252Navy ................................................................................................. 253

Great Britain ............................................................................................. 255France. ...................................................................................................... 258Czecho-Slovakia (1938) ........................................................................... 259Poland ....................................................................................................... 259The Soviet Union ...................................................................................... 260

Psychological Preparations for War ............................................................... 262


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The Foreign Policy of the Great Powers on the Eve of WarGreat Britain

The Policy of “European Balance of Power” during the Pre-War Years .... 270Britain’s Policy on Germany from “Munich” to 15 March 1939 ........... 286The British Reaction to 15 March 1939 ................................................. 293Carte Blanche to Poland on 31 March 1939 .......................................... 300The Policy of Rumours and of Encirclement from March to August 1939 .313The Extension of the Blank Cheque on 25 August 1939 ....................... 333The Annihilation of Germany as a War Aim .......................................... 340

The United States of America ..................................................................... 346The Soviet Union ........................................................................................ 370

The Last Days of PeaceThe German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact ............................................. 385Marching Orders of 23 August ............................................................... 388The Activities of the British Government from 25-28 August ............... 393The Meeting between Hitler and Henderson on 29 August ................... 403Collaboration between London and Warsaw from 29-31 August 1939 . 407Initiatives of the German Government ................................................... 415The Lethargic Polish Ambassador .......................................................... 420The “Line” of Lord Halifax .................................................................... 422

“War-Guilt” before the Nuremberg Tribunal ................................................. 439Documents against Hitler ............................................................................... 447

Demands for Living Space (Lebensraum) in Mein Kampf .................... 447“Key Documents” of the IMT on Hitler’s Non-Public Speeches ......... 450The “Hossbach Memorandum”Hitler’s Address to the Commanders-in-Chief of the Wehrmachton 5 November 1937 .............................................................................. 451Hitler’s Address to the German Presson 10 November 1938 ............................................................................ 454Hitler’s Address to the Senior Officers of the Wehrmachton 23 May 1939 ...................................................................................... 455Hitler’s Address to the Commanders-in-Chief of the Wehrmachton 22 August 1939 .................................................................................. 460Hitler’s Address to the Commanders-in-Chief of the Wehrmachton 23 November 1939. ........................................................................... 469

The Czecho-Slovak Memoranda at the Paris Peace Conference 1919-1920 ..... 471

Appendix and Sources .................................................................................... 476


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Leitmotiv: Truth For Germany!

The building of political structures to ensure lasting peace will necessarilycall for open and unbiased dialogue, itself dependent on historical objectivity.Those who falsify other nations’ history, refusing to consider their past objectivelyand honestly, deserve no trust: they have nothing to contribute to the quest forpeace and justice in the world. It is the historian’s duty for the sake of the past andthe future to search for, to find, to defend and to gain acceptance for those historicaltruths which will stand the test of time, irrespective of considerations of politicalexpedience which today, with the support of the mass media and of the help ofstate-directed channelling, can be elevated to the status of universal dogma. Theblind adherence to politically motivated conclusions and the concealment ofessential historical documents1) can never help attain that objectivity which isindispensable to the quest for peace and the continued existence of humanity. Theworld today cannot afford to tolerate historical lies. Both the present and the futuredemand an uncompromising examination of the question of war guilt. The proverb“Might is right” offers no solution. Moreover, the warring parties to any futureconflict will hardly acknowledge it as a precept of international law. A judgmentcan be constructive only if accepted by both sides as being based on fundamentaland inalienable truths, and on a selfsame interpretation of the law. Whoever doesnot also grant the principles of justice to Germany is clearly not amongst thosewho have truly perceived and understood what really happened in Europe andindeed in the world during the past decades and who are now determined on makingunderstanding, verity, justness, honour – and consequently peace itself – politicallyeffective.

Those who place all blame for the Second World War automatically on AdolfHitler have neither grasped nor sought to identify the causes of the First WorldWar or of the various conflicts that arose between 1918 and 1939. Thus, no answeris given to the guilt question of previous wars, nor those that have been waged

1) With regard to the period preceding the Second World War, this pertains mainly to the minutes ofBritish cabinet meetings and the correspondence between Roosevelt, Churchill and the Kremlinarchives.


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since 1945. Likewise, the prevailing tension between the world powers, betweenEast and West, cannot be explained by placing guilt solely on Hitler and the Germanpeople. To try and ultimately establish Hitler’s war guilt as a dogma for all timesis to refuse those insights and connections which are fundamental not only for thewar guilt question in general but which are of cardinal importance in laying thefoundations for assuring the survival of present and future generations and nations.It is vital to discard political dogmas, prejudices, catchwords and slogans in orderto achieve a fuller vision of history, of peoples and of individual destinies and tomake unbiased judgment possible. To project guilt onto Germany alone is to lockhumanity into a new mentality of hatred.

The Allied war and atrocity propaganda of the First World War was developedin the succeeding years of peace by the same politicians and press magnates, stillat their posts, into spiritual guidelines both for their own and for the vanquishedpeoples. The same methods are again applied, but in a perfected manner, duringand after the Second World War. The claims of atrocity propaganda now becomethe “historical” basis of political opinion amongst civilized nations. Is it any wonderthat our world finds itself in ever more dire political crises?

The appalling events of the Second World War can be properly judged only bysubmitting the political and military behaviour of both camps to the same criteria,and by acknowledging that the actions both of decision makers and of peoples arenot solely the product of their free will, of a plan and of a premeditated objective,or, respectively, of an individual’s good or bad intentions. Only after seeking toresolve the question of responsibility for the war in an objective manner and withoutpreconception can one hope to arrive at a just verdict of this period. To date nosuch effort has been undertaken by any official body.

The present study is so designed as to draw insights and knowledge fromhistory and to render them constructively useful both for the present and forthe future. A thorough understanding of history will require awareness andacknowledgement of the fact that political authority is principally a matter ofpower, so that a political leader – may he be a German one – may he be anAdolf Hitler – often has no choice but to also employ the selfsame methodsand means as are imposed upon him by the adversary: for without evenlymatched armaments measures he would remain ineffective. It is, moreover,unjust to censure Hitler for having used such methods and means whilst leavingothers who used them exempt from blame.

Were the various measures taken by the NSDAP (National Socialist GermanWorkers Party) typical of National Socialism or were they symptomatic of thetime? The bloody communist rebellions of the period, for their part, were the


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prelude to the formation of the Weimar Republic.2) As early as January 1919, theleadership of the SPD (Social-Democratic Party of Germany) organized volunteermilitias, which took up arms against the participants in the violent rebellions andstrikes that had brought general disorder to the Reich. The following list mayserve as a reminder of the general presence of uniformed contingents: “Red FrontFighting Unit”, “Steel Helmet”, “Reichsbanner Black, Red and Gold” (laterknown as the “Iron Front”), “Red Navy”, “Volunteer Corps”, “Werewolf”, “Orderof Young Germans”; and numerous other armed action units. It should also beremembered that neither authoritarian leadership, nor dictatorial autocracy, norvigorous state propaganda, nor the banning of opposition political parties, norconcentration camps, nor the imprisonment of political dissenters, nor anti-Semitism, nor rearmament and universal compulsory military service, nor speciallaws in a state of emergency, nor “the politics of power”, nor military strategy, –nor war crimes – were inventions of Hitler or of the NSDAP, or of the Germanpeople. Alas, it does not look as if these occurrences are now banished from theworld scene along with the year 1945. When these practices are used bygovernments in many parts of the world today, they seem to cause just as littleshock as they did when adopted by Germany’s adversaries in the years from 1933to 1945, or by any of the world powers before that time. That said, a one-sidedmorality will not help solve the political problems of today’s world. In order tohave done with the seemingly endless recurrence of injustice and suffering, a goalto which each one of us must devote all our efforts, it will be necessary to lookbeyond the confines of Germany.

The sovereignty of a nation includes the right to revolution, legitimizing it inso far as it may enable the nation to put an end to internal chaos and effectivelyenhance the nation’s prestige in the international arena. This is all the morelegitimate when a political party has obtained power legally. Whatever reasoningmight be applied for judging this matter, it must not be coloured by the nationalinterests of any particular state, but should rather adhere to ethical principles thatare equally valid and binding for all nations. Nor can a just assessment be developedin the shadow of events arising from an all-out war of annihilation. Research in

2) Beginning with the sailors’ revolt in Kiel, on 3 November 1918, armed rebellion spread to manycities throughout the Reich. Communist-inspired uprisings followed, one after another. To mentiononly the early ones: January 1919 in Berlin (156 dead in one week); March 1919 in Halle; generalstrikes and with revolutionary clashes in many cities of the Reich in 1919 alone (more than 1,000dead); April-May 1919 in Munich: proclamation of the Räterepublik (soviet republic - esp. inBavaria) (800 dead); March-April 1920 in the Ruhr area (in three weeks approximately 1,000dead). At that time, nobody had heard of Hitler. H. Prinz zu Löwenstein, Deutsche Geschichte,p. 511.


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history obliges one to confront a myriad of dreadful facts.3) Nevertheless, thisdoes not exempt us from the obligation to find standard criteria for historicalassessment, criteria that can be found only with a comprehensive, impartial,objective view of history, taking into account all essential aspects. The war guiltquestion stands at the centre of the debate. In this epoch of world wars, more thanever before, this problem has become a matter of might, of dogma and of worldview. One cannot escape the impression that the emphasis is not so much a searchfor the truth of this question but rather an effort to interpret the war guilt in such away as to serve certain interests. Is it any wonder, then, that national or “worldproletarian” interests decide on the interpretation and appreciation of secondaryhistorical factors?

A declaration of war in the absence of any violation of national rights andinterests, war policies designed to exacerbate hostilities and steer them towardsanother country, are deeds that would greatly influence any historical judgment.After all, these deeds are the motives and immediate causes which brought aboutthe death of some 55 million human beings during the Second World War; all elseare but consequences.

On September 3 1939, England and France declared war on Germany. In sodoing they transformed a limited territorial dispute between Poland and Germanyinto a world war over the city of Danzig, a matter that could easily have beenresolved through negotiation. The real significance of these events can be revealedonly by an analysis of the apparent muddle of causes and effects that induced thegreat European democracies to opt for war rather than to seek conciliation.Moreover, we cannot have a just idea of the situation if, for example, we ignorethe main war crimes committed by Germany’s opponents before or after September3 1939 (see pp. 42-43, footnote 40), or, if we do not take any account of the factthat the Soviet Union decided to wage war against Germany (for the destructionof Fascism in order to extend the world revolution) in May-June 1940, i.e. a yearbefore the start of Germany’s Russian campaign (a decision which was publiclyadmitted by the Soviets 13 years after the end of the war – see p. 370 seq.).

The present volume tries to unlock the historical insights that are necessary inorder to learn lessons from our past and to draw conclusions for the future ofmankind – in order to avoid a third world catastrophe. The facts thus exposed willperhaps reawaken old national resentments in the lands of the winners, discreditingdogmas cemented by years and years of propaganda. In any case, the free and

3) See G. Ludwig, Massenmord im Weltgeschehen. For the sake of clarity, the place and the date of publication of the source material are recorded

only in the bibliography.


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open discussion of questions of destiny, questions that are crucial for humanity,for the European nations and for the German nation, cannot rightly be denied byway of a peremptory invocation of the National Socialist policies towards theJews during the last war. A German must be allowed to clear the accusation ofguilt cleaving to Germany’s name. He must, therefore, be allowed to strive fullycommitted towards world peace – equipped only with his intellectual resources.

The book’s title places it in direct opposition to “lies about Germany” and isonly a first step in refuting them. It is the first chapter of a more comprehensivework which, starting from the historical-political context, reaches into the realmsof the natural sciences. Indeed, the various questions to be put concerning thepolitical future of humanity, just as those concerning the war guilt, are no longerstrictly political in nature, but also ideological (weltanschaulich). And these, fortheir part, are rooted within the orderly structure of nature’s recognizable laws.

This “Worldview (Weltanschauung) of knowledge” has for its aim theprevention and definitively the elimination of a Third World War.


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Clarification of the War Guilt Question:A Prerequisite for Future Peace

Two world wars have swept over the continents like hurricanes. Death andmisery had left the survivors horror-stricken. Countless cities were crushed intopiles of rubble and ashes. Imbued with idealism and belief in a just cause, armieswere bleeding to death on all fronts. Women, children and old people found theirgraves buried under the bombs and phosphorous of enemy squadrons. Millionsupon millions suffer their undeserved lot with dogged and silent determination.Countless destinies have been transformed by these senseless tragedies.

Who was responsible for all this horror? One man? A gang of criminals? Severalgangs? One nation? A “world conspiracy” of “capitalists”, “Jews”, “Fascists”,“Communists”? Or, and this question needs to be asked too, is it the whole humanrace marked by “original sin”? The will of God? Did nature with its still largelyhidden laws arrange for those tiny particles – we human beings – to battle eternallyon this planet earth; this immense planet that fades into obscurity in the vastnessof the cosmos? In that case, is there no guilt at all? Is it fate or the will of God, orthe random selection of human free will that shape our historical development?Are victory and defeat merely the expression of a judgment handed down byhistory in regard to individuals and nations? In this world, do we only findtriumphant the honourable, the noble, the just, the loving, the compassionate and– the progress?

Only reason can enlighten us with respect to these elementary questions. Faithis not able to supply the answer. When faced with the misery and gravity of thesituation, the millions of killed and wounded, the war-stricken nations, then eachone of us is reminded to unravel the problems of the past – to do it with honestyand objectivity and with courage and vigour. It goes without saying that thescientific method should be used here.

Scientific analysis demands a mind without prejudice and immune to thepressures of political power. Humanity no longer has any use for theories,hypotheses and contradicting schools of thought. We have come to realize that itis not faith, not scientific or political teaching and not any philosophy that haveever given us a reliable assessment or clear, unambiguous right answers whenprobing the world and its displays. It is therefore essential to critically evaluate all


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those beliefs and tenets which, especially in the political field, are deeply entrenchedand defended with such intolerance. Insanity, stupidity, megalomania, profiteering,barbarism, miscalculations and the losing of one’s nerves can no longer be acceptedby any nation as a possible explanation for the causes of the two world wars. Theconsequences are far too gruesome, the inconsistencies of the testimonies tooobvious.

Not enough of the ravages of the past, not enough of the experience of the twoworld wars, not enough of the misery in one’s own country and in other countries– only a few years have gone by since the most dreadful of all wars and once morethe threat of a third world war is looming. Despairing when faced with this pitilessreality, we search for a rescue, for a convincing answer to the agonizing questions.Why must nations always be at odds with one another? Does war perhaps comeabout regularly in order to check the continuous propagation of the human race?Is there any justice or mercy in nature? Did our forebears deliberately choose tomove from one period of destitution to another when, in fact, they could haveopted for peace? Throughout the ages they have longed for freedom, equality,fraternity, for happiness. Were their declarations of peace mere idle prattle, justempty phrases, used to deceive the nations? Did not each generation vie anewwith their fathers to surpass them with more altruism and more love of neighbour?

Youthful idealism always seems to have been smothered. Once more, historyhas denied noble motives. What then do we, today’s young generation, expect?Who will dare vie with his forebears and deem his own wisdom greater than theirs?

If we really had wanted to improve on our ancestors’ efforts for peace, weshould have succeeded long ago in banishing the threat of war for all times,especially since, on the one hand, we now have at our disposal all possible meansfor bringing about a reciprocal understanding between nations, while, on the otherhand, never before have so many people realized the utter futility of war. Twounimaginable gruesome wars on a global scale “to rid the world of war”, – twowars “to make the nations fit for democracy”, – two wars for “getting rid of tyranny”,– two wars “to gain acceptance for humanitarism” – were without success. Eachtime the results were such to bring about an increase in injustices, moredisagreements and more disputes amongst the nations. The slogans, the propaganda,the dishonesty, the selfish attitudes, the denial of people’s rights to self-determination and the merciless, hate-filled and shameful policies of destruction,all pursued in the name of feigned humanitarian values, were those appendagesand consequences which appear today more obvious and which are now moreirreconcilable than ever before, in spite of a changed balance of power. The pathof History has never been a path of common sense or fairness, nor has it ever been


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a path of fraternity, of magnanimity or of true advancement.Fabricated war guilt notions, enforced by intolerant power politics, served as

a starting point and a justification for the system of rules created by the militaryvictors. In spite of the fact that historical research had refuted these views, despitethe obvious flagrant violations of the right to self-determination, despite theinstalling of “democratic” – even “most democratic” – social structures, the post-war political structures aborted freedom of opinion, of teaching and especially ofaction on the crucial war guilt dogma – notwithstanding its vital importance forthe destiny of nations, for the political climate and for the international order.

A looking back into history poses the question: Has the world changed overthe centuries? Were the previous forms of government very different from today’s?Although many historical situations repeat themselves, with different nuances andunder changed names, with different banners and changed value systems, today’sconditions are essentially different in the following respects:

1. The intellectual level and social attitude of the educated citizen;2. the public spirit of modern society;3. the catastrophic dimensions of a modern war;4. new problems posed by the magnitude of such a war (destruction of

all established values, danger of mass suicide);5. the expectancy and the experience of various forms of government;6. the structures of international co-existence of nations.What else might be done besides creating international arbitration bodies such

as the League of Nations and the United Nations Organization, with their varioussubsidiary organizations, to settle international disputes peacefully? Theseinstitutions were not created to lull to sleep the nations of the world, but weremeant as a wake-up call for an international conscience! Even though their ideas,undertakings, modus operandi, and constitutions more often than not, indeed inpart quite fundamentally, deviated from the demands of international politics andfrom international law, the existence of these institutions should be fullyacknowledged.

Every politician must take into account the sovereign will of statesmen ofother countries. International co-operation requires voluntary consent betweenthem. Needed is a power transcending national limits, a law transcending nationallimits, a system of values transcending national limits, – that is ailing the systemof world politics. If peace is constantly endangered throughout the world, is it dueto a want of goodwill amongst men? Possibly a world government might be ableto open new paths by which to maintain peace. However, it would have to bebased on the trust of all nations. The establishment of such trust would, for its


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part, begin with an objective assessment of common historical experience (notablywith regard to those statesmen and political systems that the law of fate has allowedto be destroyed), and end with an understanding of the dynamics of causality towhich mankind is subject. To these conditions must be added the duty to hold fastto universally binding values. In our century (the twentieth), however, the practicedeveloped that the guilt and innocence of former warring opponents is decidedupon by the use of arms, and the world organizations are developed each timefrom the victorious military coalition. The organizations thus formed have at alltimes striven to maintain as official their own partial account of history and toimpose the political order thus derived on an “international level”, labelling it as“international” and “in accordance with international law”. Thus we find that upto now, the world organizations have always refused to adopt an objective attitudeof non-partisanship and to commission historical research in order to uncover thetruth. They have also strongly opposed any modification of the status quo thatwould demand justice and historical truth and with it the conditions for peace. It isnot by chance that these institutions have not enjoyed the trust of nations, normake their codes binding for all. After military defeat, the victor would routinelydispute the legal system of his formerly equal – i.e. with equal rights invested –opponent to the point of declaring it to be criminal. Such methods are contrary tointernational law and inhumane, not to say “criminal”, and will hardly solve anyproblems in the future. The world powers, who alone can be expected to launchnew wars, must engage in dialogue on an equal footing. Both the politician, inlooking to the future, and the historian, in confronting the past, must work in sucha spirit.

War as a reality is not only fixed in the past, but requires today and tomorrowa constant state of alert in all countries. The fundamental problems that it posesare timeless. Any attempt at clarification must be made without attachment totime, place, power or ideology.

A world war is a tragedy for the whole human race, not just one nation or onepolitical party. The causes of war cannot be clarified by preventing yesterday’sopponent from speaking and reminding him of his defeat. All of mankind wants tobe heard. It has a right to be heard. For the sake of the past and the future it evenbecomes a duty of politicians and of historians to listen to its voice.

The mammoth proportions of the world wars pushed the question of war guiltand of expiation (of this guilt) to the centre of attention in public opinion worldwide.Napoleon’s banishment to Elba and St. Helena allowed the question of guilt to beset aside, but in the twentieth century too many violent passions had been roused,insisting on an investigation into the causes, clamouring for a verdict and protection


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for the future. The millions of those killed in the war, the wounded, the homeless,the oppressed, the refugees from the East, are entitled to the condemnation ofthose guilty of the war. They are entitled to the respect to be shown for their ownpersonal rights and the rights of their nation. The absence of any internationalcourt proceedings and, especially, of any objective international investigativecommittee charged to discover the causes of the First World War seems to havefacilitated the subsequent evolvement of a second world war. Although it wouldhave been wishful thinking hoping to deter future politicians from waging war onpain of death, the knowledge of those causes and their guilty agents, as well as theimproved standards of international law, could have prevented a new catastrophe.The year to repair that neglect was 1945.

The blame for this neglect, however, does not attach to the German nation ora German government, for when the German side was repeatedly demanding aneutral – i.e. an international – commission of historians for an investigation ofthe war guilt question and offered, at the same time, to grant access to all archivesand documents, this was spurned by the Versailles victor states. Nor did that sidedisplay a burning desire to guarantee justice and equality amongst the nations forthe sake of a future peace.

Professor Sven Hedin, the renowned Swedish scholar and East Asia explorer,once wrote appropriately:

“In studying modern history, one can rarely state with certainty that a warbetween two countries or two blocs of nations actually began at the momentwhen war was declared or when the first shot was fired. Take the two worldwars swamping the present generation, where the events which finally madewar inevitable go far back in time. The shots at Sarajevo were not fired by merechance, but their sound ruptured the dark clouds which had been brewing overEurope for some time.

Even less did the Second World War begin on the 1st September 1939, atthat precise moment when German troops were crossing the Polish border. Itwas born of the First World War, at that hour at the latest when the represen-tatives of thirty-two nations gathered in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles toendorse a document that was touted as a peace treaty without being one.”1)

A German historian:“The popular idea according to which a war starts with a declaration of war

is only partly accurate. There are intermediary stages between war and peace towhich neither of the two concepts applies. It is for that reason that suchprovisional expressions as ‘undeclared war’ and ‘cold war’ have been invented.”2)

1) S. Hedin, Amerika im Kampf der Kontinente, p. 60.2) G. Moltmann, Amerikas Deutschlandpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg, p. 4.


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The historian can, therefore, on the basis of previous experience, recognize“the dark clouds” which presently threaten mankind. He need not even wait forthe first shot of a new war before being able to assess and evaluate the givenconflict matter and legal position amongst the nations involved.

Historians and scientists have a duty to note in time the causes of wars of pasttimes, of present times and of future times and so avert future wars.

Versailles 1919 and the Question of War Guilt

The war guilt question has been neither perceived as having inevitableconsequences nor has it been treated as such to this day. It has served instead as ameans to promote the victors’ power interests, resulting in permanentdiscrimination, deprivation of rights, the carving up of territory and the pilferingof resources of the vanquished. Under the pretext of war guilt, moral decency,trust and the rights of peoples are eclipsed, leaving fertile ground for future conflict.“World public opinion”, thus far, has not grasped this.

In contradiction of the 14-point programme drafted in the course of thenegotiations leading to the armistice in 1918, France and Great Britain imposedconditions upon the German people that violated the fundamental principles ofinternational law. In the terms of the Versailles victor’s diktat, Germany bore fulland exclusive responsibility for the war; subsequently, was liable for reparation ofall damage done. The Versailles diktat became the “foundation of law”, the “lawof nations” providing the rule of order amongst the states of Europe. Lies, economicexploitation for an indefinite period, annexation, forced assimilation and theoppression of ethnic minorities, the expropriation of other nations’ colonies,compulsory demilitarization, submission to foreign governments, militaryoccupation and numerous other instances of wrongful and arbitrary treatment werethus legitimated by the victors. Thus also the very ideas of “law”, “democracy”,“agreement”, “truth”, “self-determination”, “freedom” etc. were subverted. Anyonewho called into question these acts of the“civilized nations” was accused of“violation of law”, “revisionism”, “revanchism” and considered a war-monger.

The authority of this “ruling” is derived from the “war guilt paragraph” (§231)of the Versailles “treaty” and, furthermore, from the Allies’ explanatory letter of16 June 1919 to the German representatives (Reply of the Allied and Associated


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Powers to the observations of the German delegations on the conditions of peace),published as a preface to the treaty. It reads, in part:

“...In the view of the Allied and Associate Powers the war which began onAugust 1 1914, was the greatest crime against humanity and the freedom of peoplesthat any nation, calling itself civilized, has ever consciously committed. For manyyears the rulers of Germany, true to the Prussian tradition, strove for a position ofdominance in Europe. They were not satisfied with that growing prosperity andinfluence to which Germany was entitled, and which all other nations were willingto accord her, in the society of free and equal peoples. They required that theyshould be able to dictate to and tyrannize a subservient Europe, as they dictatedand tyrannized over a subservient Germany.

In order to attain their ends they used every channel in their power throughwhich to educate their own subjects in the doctrine that might was right ininternational affairs...

As soon as their preparations were complete, they encouraged a subservientally to declare war against Serbia... In order to make doubly sure, they refusedevery attempt at conciliation and conference until it was too late, and the worldwar was inevitable for which they had plotted, and for which alone among thenations they were fully equipped and prepared.

Germany’s responsibility, however, is not confined to having planned andstarted the war. She is no less responsible for the savage and inhuman manner inwhich it was conducted.

They were the first to use poisonous gas... They commenced the submarinecampaign ... They drove thousands of men and women and children with brutalsavagery into slavery in foreign lands. They allowed barbarities to be practisedagainst their prisoners of war from which the most uncivilized peoples wouldhave recoiled.

The conduct of Germany is almost unexampled in human history. The terribleresponsibility which lies at her doors can be seen in the fact that not less thanseven million dead lie buried in Europe, while more than twenty million otherscarry upon them the evidence of wounds and sufferings, because Germany sawfit to gratify her lust for tyranny by resort to war.

That is why the Allied and Associated Powers have insisted as a cardinalfeature of the treaty that Germany must undertake to make reparation to the veryuttermost of her power; for reparations for wrongs inflicted is of the essence ofjustice...

The Allied and Associated Powers therefore believe that the peace they haveproposed is fundamentally a peace of justice. They are no less certain that it is apeace of right fulfilling the terms agreed upon at the time of the armistice.”

The victorious powers have been frustrating all serious attempts of clarifyingthe causes and the motives, along with their practical application to politics, ofthe First World War. Since the 1920s no serious historian has defended the argument


17

of Germany’s exclusive responsibility for the war. Yet the repeated protests andrequests by successive Weimar governments seeking rehabilitation of their countrythrough a revision of the “official” version invariably met with outright rejection,effectively justified by nothing but “Power”. None of the victors of Versaillesbased any of their charges against Germany on specialists’ reports, let alone didthey reduce or retract the charges with the emergence of later historical researchfindings. In this regard, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George declared at ameeting of the Reparations Commission in London on 3 March 1921:

“German responsibility for the war is fundamental to the Allies. It is thebasis on which the Treaty has been established and if this basis breaks down, orshould be abandoned, the Treaty would be destroyed ... Therefore, we wish tomake clear, once and for all, that German responsibility for the war has definitelybeen established and must accordingly be dealt with by the Allies.”1)

This label of culpability was necessary so as not to be indicted of one’s ownimmoral actions. Only in this way was it possible to continue to consider as valid,“legitimate” and irrevocable all of the “punishment” put upon Germany in theform of territorial cessions, discriminations, reparations,2) confiscations, controlrights etc.

“The future is in your hands!”

With those words Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic,greeted the representatives of 27 nations at the opening of the Versailles Peaceconference on 18 January 1919. These words were to take on historicalsignificance. The reason for the disastrous outcome of this Peace conferencewas not due to the “harsh” conditions laid upon the German nation, but ratherbecause an unjust ruling in international law was created in the shape of theVersailles “treaty” – signed by a German government under threat of militaryoccupation. There were politicians both in Germany and abroad who couldalready foresee the inevitable consequences of the “Peace Treaty”.

Phillip Scheidemann (SPD), Chancellor of the Reich, in May 1919:

“ I come straight to the point: This thick volume in which hundreds ofparagraphs begin with: ‘Germany renounces’, ‘renounces’, ‘renounces’! – this

1) H. Lutz, Verbrechervolk im Herzen Europas? p. 98.2) An official relinquishment of the reparations has never been pronounced. 1932 saw the

discontinuation of the reparations as a necessary outcome of the economic depression. In 1950,theWestern Powers opened the matter again declaring that the German reparation obligations requiredyet another ruling. H. Prinz zu Löwenstein, Deutsche Geschichte, p. 511.


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terrible, deadly weapon is being used to extort from a great nation an admissionof its own unworthiness, an agreement to a pitiless dismemberment, theacceptance of enslavement, this text must not be allowed to become a statutebook for the future ...

What hand should not wither, binding us with these chains, yet still theywant us to work like slaves for international finance, to do socage (labour forthe feudal lord) for the whole world.

The government of the Reich considers this treaty unacceptable. Unacceptableto such a degree that, still today, I cannot believe that the world could tolerate atext such as this without the sound of millions upon millions of voices echoingthroughout every land and every party: Away with this murderous plot!”3)

Many notable politicians from France, Britain, Italy and other countries, in1919 and in the years soon afterwards, were already stating with urgent insistencethat the “Versailles arrangement”, particularly as concerned the borders betweenGermany and Poland, could only lead to a new war.

The former American Secretary of State (Foreign Minister), Robert Lansing,as quoted by Francesco Nitti, head of the Italian government:

“‘The victors intend to impose their combined objectives on the vanquished,and to subordinate all other interests to their own. European politics, asestablished today, are prey to every sort of greed and intrigue, only called uponto declare just what is unjust. We have a peace treaty, but it will not bring lastingpeace, because it is founded on the shifting sands of individual interests.

‘In this judgment’, Lansing added, ‘I was not alone. A few days after, Ifound myself in London, where I was discussing the treaty with some of theleading men in Britain. They all agreed that the treaty was absurd and unworkable,that it was born of intrigue and shaped by greed and, therefore, was more apt tocause wars than to prevent them.”4)

Nitti himself, at the same period, said:

“A serious and durable peace has never been built on the plunder, the tortureand the ruin of a defeated nation, let alone a defeated great nation. And it isprecisely this what the Treaty of Versailles represents.” 4)

The British Labour Member of Parliament, J.W. Kneeshaw, at the Party’sconference of 1920 in Scarborough, commented:

3) Tägliche Rundschau, 11 May 1919.4) F. Nitti, La Tragedia dell’Europa – che farà America? pp. 13-14.


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“Should we have been the defeated nation and should such conditions havebeen imposed upon us, we would, instead of a calm engagement, begin in theschools and homes to prepare our children for a retaliatory war to shake off theintolerable, unbearable victors’ yoke. These conditions have amounted to a plotnot only against Germany, against Austria and the other defeated nations, butalso against the whole of civilization.” 5)

The Dutch Ambassador to London, René van Swinderen, stated to the Britishdiplomat, E. Howard:

“The Versailles peace conditions contain all the germs for a just and lastingwar.” 6)

President Wilson in 1919 stated:

“How can, for instance, a power like the United States of America – since Icannot speak for any other – 3,000 miles across the ocean, sign this Treaty,withdraw from Europe, and tell the people in America that a peace treaty hasbeen created for the world, while its content cannot be viewed as lasting. I havefelt it incumbent upon me to withhold my signature.” 7)

Is it at all surprising that the Weimar Republic rejected the victors’ demandsfor the extradition of “war criminals” – only Germans, of course! – and thenallowed one of the most prominent amongst the “criminals”, Field Marshal vonHindenburg, to be twice elected President of the Reich (in 1925 and 1932)?

All governments during the Weimar Republic, irrespective of politicalorientation, denied the legitimacy of the Versailles diktat’s grave accusations andof its consequences for their country, calling time and time again for a fair judgmentto be made by an impartial Court of Justice. Always in vain! The great powerssimply made no response. Trust amongst nations thus remained impaired. Versailleswas the irresponsible provocation that summoned a nation to gather all of itsdefensive forces available and mould them into a united front, the better to fightthis injustice not only with words but also with deeds.

An Englishman, Lord Buckmaster, admitted that

“to induce any nation, however evil and abominable they might be, to lay

5) W. Jaksch, Europas Weg nach Potsdam, p. 214.6) E. Howard of Penrith, Theatre of Life, vol. II, p. 375.7) E.Viehaus, Die Minderheitenfrage und die Entstehung der Minderheitenschutzverträge auf

der Pariser Friedenskonferenz 1919, p. 193.


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down their arms on one set of terms and then, when they were defenceless, toimpose another set, is an act of dishonour which can never be effaced.” 8)

But, this was not the only thing that took place. Lloyd George conceded, on 7October 1928, in a speech at the Guild Hall in London:

“The entire documentation which certain people among our Allies have placedbefore us, was made up of lies and is a swindle. We have ruled [in Versailles*)]on the basis of forgeries.” 9)

The Allied delegates confessed, at the session of 8 May 1919 at the Peaceconference at Trianon palace, that they had not the slightest notion of the problemsof central Europe.10) Yet none of these shocking facts led to any change in thesituation.

The governments of those countries had given their word to the world and toGermany, and they broke it time and time again. Germany had laid down her armsin November 1918, trusting that the conditions of the Fourteen Points would behonoured, since Lloyd George for Britain and Clemenceau for France (as well asthe United States of America) had committed themselves in a pre-armisticeagreement. The Allies completely ignored their obligation. The armistice agreementwas violated at the very outset with the continuation of the blockade againstGermany. The Allies repeatedly breached their “Peace Treaty” thereafter, in theabsence of any provocation by the German government, and at a time when AdolfHitler was just entering the political arena.

The violations of the Versailles “Treaty” were:1. Failure to respect the Reich’s sovereignty and right to self-determination.2. Annexation of parts of Upper Silesia by Poland in spite of a plebiscite in

favour of remaining German.3. Poland’s violations of the borders drawn up at Versailles.4. Annexation of the Memel territory by Lithuania, without plebiscite.5. Misappropriation of Germany’s colonies contrary to article 5 of Wilson’s

Fourteen Points as the one confirming “impartial regulations”.

8) R. Grenfell, Unconditional Hatred, p. 84. *) Additional remarks in square brackets within quotations have been added by the author for

clarification. 9) K. Rabl, Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Völker, p. 97; H. Lebre and H. Coston in Les Origines

Secrètes de la Guerre 1939-45, p. 17 (German ed., Das Geheimnis um die Ursachen des ZweitenWeltkrieges, 1958 p. 21).

10) H. Lebre, ibid., p. 96 (German ed. p. 110).


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6. Non-observance of the minority rights of the separated ethnic Germans,despite contractual assurances.

7. Military occupation of the Ruhrort, Duisburg, of Düsseldorf, Mühlheim,Oberhausen and other West German cities in March 1921, and the relocation ofthe customs border; military occupation of the Ruhr area in January 1923 by France.

8. Prohibition of a Customs Union between Germany and Austria (to say nothingof the prohibition of unification of the two countries).

9. Non-compliance with the disarmament – guarantee.10. Additional resolutions of the Council of the League of Nations for further

restricting the “freedom” of Danzig.11)

11. Expulsion of ethnic Germans, who were compulsory separated from theterritories detached from the German Reich; by 1922 their numbers had alreadyreached one million, not counting those interned by the Allies:

200,000 Expatriate – and colonial Germans;120,000 Germans of Alsace-Lorraine;500,000 Germans, refugees and exiles from West Prussia,Posen and Eastern Upper Silesia;100,000 Germans from Russia and the Baltics.The countries in question never took stock of the grave consequences of these

facts. Brave voices raised here and there were stifled by the wave of blindinghatred of anything German. In those lands the showing of hatred for Germanyseemed to have become a way to demonstrate character and good citizenship, inkeeping with the international or rather “European” political standard. Not troubledin the least by the various critics, the victorious powers continued to regard their“treaty” as a means by which to conduct their general anti-German policy. Germanyremained weak, dismembered, strife-torn, isolated from foreign affairs,economically ruined and under constant military threat from her neighbours.

Danzig, Posen-West Prussia, Upper Silesia and Eastern Silesia, Memel, theSaarland, Sudetenland, Hultschin, Eupen-Malmedy, North-Schleswig, South Tyroland Alsace-Lorraine*) – the “treaty” had stripped Germany of all these territories,turning them into detonators of conflict along her borders that made a reconciliationbetween the German nation and her neighbours still more difficult, if not impossible.

11) Responsibility for foreign politics of the “Free City” of Danzig was eventually transferred toPoland. Danzig became a Polish customs district, with its railway under Polish administration.The port was freely accessible to Poland, open to Polish war- and munition-transport ships. Forthe rest, the League of Nations assumed the task of “protecting” the “Free City”. The GermanReich, on the other hand, was granted no rights whatsoever in this German city.

*) Inhabitants before the First World War in Alsace:


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Indeed, a coalition of hostile European states could be mustered against Germanyat any given moment.

Adolf Hitler declared in a speech to the Reichstag on 17 May 1933:

“The hopes of restoring an international conception of justice have beendashed by the [Versailles] Treaty for, in order to justify all the measures of thisdiktat, the Allies had to brand Germany with the mark of guilt [for the war].This procedure is both simplistic and impracticable. In future, the guilt for aconflict will always be borne by the defeated since the winners are always ableto impose their own diagnosis. This practice leads thus to a dreadful result,because it gave them a reason for changing a balance of power as existing at theend of that war into a permanent legal fixture. Thus the concept of victor andvanquished became officially the foundation of a new international legal andsocial order.” 12)

It took until the year 1958 before Europeans learned of the, hitherto solitary,appearance of some form of self-criticism emanating from official Paris:

“The full burden of the [Versailles] Treaty fell on Britain and France andthe newly created states in Eastern Europe that could scarcely manage theirown problems. The victors were neither strong enough to impose their will uponthe vanquished, nor magnanimous enough to seek reconciliation with them. Inspite of the idealistic internationalism of Geneva, no constructive Europeanpolicy came about and so constant use was made of stopgap measures in orderto maintain a dubious balance of power.

The entire tragic nature of the period between the two World Wars isexpressed in the failure of the League of Nations.

Germany above all had cause to assume a suspicious attitude towards anorganization that was based on the coalition of the victors.

France had attempted to impose coercive measures on a vanquished Germany.By such means, Germany was driven to despair but France gained nothing...

... the creation of ‘successor-states’ that relied upon the ‘right to self-determination’, provided no satisfactory solution, for in practice that right wasaccorded only to certain majority nations...

95.2% = 1,136,056 Germans 4.8 % = 56,634 French In Lorraine: 74.7 % = 439,066 Germans 25.3 % = 146,940 French France annexed Alsace-Lorraine in 1919 without a plebiscite. When in 1871 the German

government had a plebiscite held in Alsace-Lorraine, only 39,560 of the 1.5 million inhabitantsmade use of the option to declare themselves for France.

12) G. Rühle, Das Dritte Reich, vol. 1933, pp. 169-170.


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The creation of thousands of kilometres of new borderlines in Central andEastern Europe solved none of the region’s economic problems. On thecontrary...” 13)

Let us repeat these thoughts with all urgency:1. The States in Eastern Europe, newly created by Versailles, could scarcely

manage their own problems.2. The winners of Versailles were not magnanimous enough to attempt

reconciliation with the defeated nations.3. The League of Nations was unable to establish a constructive European

policy.4. Versailles created a new and precarious balance of power.5. This doubtful balance of power was to be preserved according to the will of

the League of Nations.6. Germany was driven to despair by France’s forcible measures.7. The right to self-determination was reserved for only certain nations.However, such an admission was too late and in any case, had no effect. Those

statesmen, who had led the big battle against Imperial Germany in order to stampout “the tyranny and the international anarchy”, would not lift a finger to give aworthy democratic government in Germany an honest chance, once they haddefeated Germany. Violence and international anarchy were thus the prospectsfor the future – at a time when nobody spoke of Hitler. And so Versailles hasbecome the birthplace of National-Socialism.14) An American historian, who admitsto “heartily disliking this Hitler” 15), wrote:

“It is obvious that the revelations in the Nuremberg documents concerningHitler’s design for aggression are merely the last chapter in a long and adepressing book that began at Versailles.” 15)

“... for he [President F.D. Roosevelt] was well aware of the fact that none ofthe European nations that had profited by the Treaty of Versailles was willing togive up one crumb of the spoils of war. The injustices of that treaty could berectified only through war.” 15)

13) Unser Europa, Paris 1958 (published under the auspices of the Cultural Committee of theconsultative assembly of the Council of Europe with the authorization of the Institut internationaldes livres d’étude), pp. 132, 219-221 (contributions by Henry Brugmans, Rector of the Europa-Kollegs of Bruges, and Christopher Dawson).

14) Th. Heuss, Hitlers Weg, p. 15215) C. Tansill, Back Door to War, p. 21 (German ed. only), pp. 16, 519 (English ed.).


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Viewpoints on Germany Since 1919Fear in the Service of Disastrous Agitation

Up to now, the actions of the Powers in East and West have been characterizedby dialectics and the disregard or rather the biased distortion of universally bindingprinciples. With the weapon of propaganda in the hands of the technological Superstates they have managed to not only recast History to fit their mould of powerpolitical interests but also to set it in concrete. It is with phrases that “politicians”mobilize their peoples; it is with phrases that “historians” justify “scientifically”the actions of victorious governments; and it is with phrases that the nations willonce more be driven to the barricades. Hatred and fear, lies and violence havealways been the tools of those politicians who tirelessly repeat that they, in contrastto all others, desire peace, progress and the good of humanity and democracy. Thepolitics of hatred and fear, impossible without lies and slander, is not onlydisgraceful in itself but also carries inevitable consequences that, sooner or later,make war unavoidable.

That historically provable chain of cause and effect that was set off by theagitation of fear and hate seems to have taught us nothing. Evidently, everybodywas satisfied that the victim of the agitation – Germany – “by right” had beencharged twice, as indeed was “proven” not only by the outcome of the two worldwars but also by the results of the Nuremberg trials of 1945 – 1946 (IMT).1) Thehate propaganda had by now reached such a degree of perfection that its veryinitiators no longer noticed their unrestrained conclusions. To continue this policy,after the suppression of Germany, represents a danger to the presently living andfuture generations and, therefore, would demand an analysis of this practice evidentsince Versailles 1919.

Ever since 1919 the victorious Allies and their associates have continued theirwar propaganda against Germany which, as we know, was not exactly concernedwith a truthful reporting of events. If the Imperial government and the MilitaryHigh Command, the Prussian traditions and the German people had been the objectof a rigorous campaign of slander designed to help win the First World War, thatcampaign was diligently continued even after victory, so that the war aim – thecrushing and weakening of Germany – would be maintained even in future timesof peace. The systematic and deliberate practice of insulting, mocking and deriding

1) IMT Inter-Allied Military Tribunal.,


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other nations, governments and heads of state, with the help of modern means ofcommunication and with reference to freedom of speech in peacetime, withaccusations of lusting after revenge, emerged at a time when Germany was weakand defenceless and would have been willing to accept a policy of compliance.Highly indignant even today, those countries refuse a share – even a modest one –of the responsibility for the worsening of the European situation after 1919. A fewindividual politicians realized the danger then, but they were unable to makethemselves heard in the face of a forceful and antagonistic public opinion. Thosewho continually oppose the understanding of burning truths and the mostelementary legal position, resorting instead to an arrogant classification intocivilized nations and barbarians, inciting fear and calling for rearmament, playwith fire, because without respect amongst nations there can be no peacefulcoexistence. How could those arrogate to themselves the words of the “defence ofWestern Culture” who would deny respect for the ingrained tradition of theEuropean sense of justice and truth? Have they the right to dictate moral principlesor judgments to other peoples? Can they rightly invoke the National-Socialist“danger” that arose in 1933, when they have always been hostile to Germany,even before Hitler came to power? It was never a question of world views(Weltanschauungen), declarations of certain beliefs and principles of leadership,nor was it ever a question of political parties, but solely Germany’s position in theworld.

Already Kaiser Wilhelm II once declared:

“How can I ever convince a people against their will, when day in and dayout the press is prompting the people to an attitude of distrust and suspicion,and when every act of friendship and peace is misjudged?” 2)

Hatred of Germany was the rallying-point of the Versailles victors and theirco-victors: “The Boche will pay!” was the leading slogan of the time. It seemedthat in electoral campaigns only those candidates who sought to outdo theiropponents with displays of rabble-rousing “patriotism” were able to garner enoughvotes.

This politics of fear was not based on any facts that might have been open todifferent interpretations. It started out from arbitrary evaluations, insinuatedmotives, intentions, schemes, procedures and suppositions, most of which werepure inventions. Already a Weimar Government had withdrawn from the Genevadisarmament conference in September 1932, stating that it could no longer endurethe constant discrimination against Germany, and that it considered the arguments

2) Dokumente der Deutschen Politik und Geschichte, vol. II, p. 190 (gist only of quotation).


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presented by the French delegation in support of new security measures outrageousand dishonourable. Lloyd George, British War Premier from 1916 to 1922, statedin September 1932 when referring to the disarmament subject:

“I see no difficulty in making the German understanding my own in realizingthat the victorious nations have brazenly breached the trust in the armamentquestion.” 3)

The same man, two years later, on 29 November 1934, speaking in the BritishHouse of Commons:

“The victorious powers solemnly promised the Germans in the Treaty thatthey would disarm if Germany led the way in disarming. Germany waited fourteenyears for the fulfilment of this promise. During that time a queue of distinctive,peaceable Ministers were active in Germany, Ministers who did not stop toseriously entreat the Big Powers to redeem the given promise at long last. They[the victorious powers] – made fun – bantered these German Ministers into anumber of agreements, among them one, a distinctive anti-war agreement. Inthe meantime, all countries, with the exception of England, had intensified theirarming and had even granted government loans to Germany’s neighbours withwhich they, in turn, established powerful military organizations close toGermany’s borders. Is it any wonder that the German people were ultimatelydriven to riots and revolution against the chronic fraudulence of the big powers?”4

This man was not a “Fascist”, he was not a German, but he was British PrimeMinister. He knew only too well that France had not only continued to re-arm –considering herself not to be bound by the relevant clauses of the treaty – but thatshe had also, “from the very days the various peace treaties were signed, encourageda mass of small States to arm vigorously”.5)

“Thus, the Allies imposed disarmament upon Germany first whilst acceptingthemselves the moral obligation to reduce their own armies afterwards. Wasthis obligation carried out or not? The only reply we can give to this question is‘no’ – because it was actually after the First World War that France sought morethan ever to become the first military Power in Europe, and encouraged herallies in Central Europe, especially the Poles and Czechoslovaks, to rearm.”6)

3) W. Ziegler, Versailles, p. 266.4) H. Sündermann, Das Dritte Reich, p. 41.5) V. Rothermere, Warnings and Predictions, p. 77.6) F.O. Miksche, Unconditional Surrender, p. 220.


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France “had imposed upon the Germans humiliations and sufferings such asthe victorious Germans had never attempted to do”.7) France had “in spite of herfinancial crisis and her declining population the biggest army in the world”.8)

France must be considered responsible for the breakdown of the Europeandisarmament process,9) and once again was therefore to blame for the underminingof trust in the victors’ word. That Germany had fulfilled her disarmament obligationswas acknowledged by the fact that the victorious powers withdrew their “Inter-Allied Military Commission” (31 January 1927), recalled their disarmamentverification team (January 1930), and moved out of the Rhineland (June 1930).

Leaving aside the armaments question, there appeared in Britain, during thesummer and autumn of 1932 a diversion, as it were, that would take people’s mindoff the Great Depression rampant in the land, but that was to have graveconsequences: Winston Churchill and his growing band of supporters began theirfirst hateful anti-German propaganda campaign, with constant and forcefulreferences to the possibility of an imminent war and to the necessity of re-armament.10) Churchill’s propaganda phrases, unrestrained and contradictorythough they may have been, later formed the basis for a new scheme of“international law”. The fact that in 1932 it was the peaceable Weimar Republicthat Churchill was presenting as a “danger” to the world and, consequently, himselfas “always having to play the prophet of doom and gloom”, has been convenientlyforgotten today.11)

The state of the political situation in foreign affairs in 1933 and again in 1936was not of Hitler’s making, rather it was the situation he found himself in. Thepolicies of the victorious powers, outlined in the following points, were bound tohave certain consequences in a community of sovereign States, regardless ofwhether they considered the revision of the Versailles directives to be justified ornot:

1. The hypothesis of Germany’s exclusive war guilt raised to the status ofinternational principle

2. The refusal to acknowledge equality of rights for Germany3. The violation of the Versailles Treaty’s directives by the victors and their

allies or rather the support or condoning of these infringements by the League ofNations powers (see pp. 20-21)

7) F. Nitti, La Tragedia dell’Europa – che farà America? p. 19. 8) Ibid., p. 35. 9) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 77.10) V. Cowles, Winston Churchill, pp. 332-333.11) W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. I, book II, ‘War in Twilight’, p. 328.


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4. The failure to guarantee the rights of the ethnic Germans separated from theReich, and their expulsion from their homeland

5. The non-observance of the Allied disarmament guarantees6. The rejection of the attempts at reconciliation made by all the Weimar

Governments (only in the last years preceding 1933 was some reconciliationachieved, and then only in regard to single issues)

7. The foreign trade economic boycott launched against Germany from March1933 by leading powers, primarily the United States of America 12)

8. The rejection of all German proposals for arms limitation. Hitler’srecommendations up to 1935:

Offer for total disarmament: rejectedOffer of limiting the respective armies to 200,000 men: rejectedOffer of limiting the respective armies to 300,000 men, with international

supervision and non-aggression pacts with all neighbouring states: rejectedOffer of an Air pact: rejectedOffer of a generous European settlement: rejected *)

Those showing outrage at Hitler’s demeanour consequently should in the firstplace demonstrate this outrage at the policies of the Victor Powers, where –especially with regards to France – “the public and parliaments remained hostiletowards the idea of an accord with Hitler”.17)

The following events triggered off significant interactions:9. Immediately prior to promising disarmament negotiations, the British

government published on 4 March 1935 a White Book on “Germany’s illegalrearmament”, in which the National Socialist concept of education was alsoportrayed as a danger to world peace**) and, further, it announced a – British –increase in arms production. Therefore, the British were justifying their increasein arms production by citing the German arms build-up, which was in reality evena full twelve months later – according to the French Ambassador in Berlin – “stillin its embryonic stages”.13) Yet once again was a deliberate distortion of the truth

12) The German magazine Der Spiegel reported on 10 February 1965 (p. 56): “A delegation ofJewish war veterans threatened German Ambassador Heinrich Knappstein that, if war crimesbecame subject to the statute of limitations, they would make their full influence felt, and wouldgo all out to prevent a German reunification. ‘The Germans’, reported the organization’s paper,The Jewish Veteran, ‘were reminded of the effective boycott of German goods by our organizationin 1933. We are ready to repeat the same if necessary’.”; F. Berber, Deutschland – England1933-1939, pp. 27, 98, 106; compare remarks p. 40, footnote 38.

*) Grounds for this rejection – see p. 240.**) F. Berber, op.cit., p. 53.13) R. Coulondre, De Staline à Hitler, souvenirs de deux ambassades, 1936-1939, p. 174 (German

ed. p. 253), same statements by Lloyd George: J. Colvin, Vansittart in Office, p. 112.


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by one of the “peace-loving democracies” made a contributory factor along theroad to war, or that is to say, to an aggravation of the tension in Europe.

10. Extending the military service in France to two years, announced on 6March 1935, effective as of 15 March 1935.

11. Agreement of the British-French-Belgian General Staff discussionsconcluded 14 March 1935.

Germany’s answer to the events 8-11 was to bring back conscription on 16March 1935 and by repudiating the Versailles armament limitations, but not withouthaving given insistent prior warning regarding the previously announced measures8-11.

12. The Franco-Soviet Mutual Assistance Pact, signed on 2 May 1935, ratifiedand in effect as of 27 February 1936. This pact was concluded in Paris in spite ofthe full knowledge of the objectives of Bolshevism and in spite of the knowledgethat only a year earlier, on 27 January 1934, Lazar Kaganovitch, head of thePolitburo and brother-in-law of Stalin, had made public his point of view in thedaily Izvestia:

“A new French-German war would be very much in the interests of the SovietUnion.” 14)

13. The Czech-Soviet Mutual Assistance Pact, signed 16 May 1935.14. In reaction to the Franco-Soviet Mutual Assistance Pact that had become

effective only a week previously, and wary of the growing strength of theCommunists in France (“Peoples Front ” since November 1935), Hitler orderedon 7 March 1936 a symbolic 19 battalions into the demilitarized zone of the –German! – Rhineland. The objective was to enhance Germany’s military securityin the face of the danger of a Communist encirclement, but also to forcefullystress the will of the Reich to attain equality of rights. He points out that by signingthe Franco-Russian Treaty, France had unilaterally broken the Locarno Treaty of1925 and was now pledged to commence hostilities against Germany withoutconsulting the Council of the League of Nations, if either of the two signatoryPowers should decide to accuse Germany of an act of unprovoked aggression. Ifone comes to realize that the Soviet Union had been typecasting the Third Reich

14) D.L. Hoggan, The Forced War, p. 204. Prof. Hoggan has been reproached by the Institut für Zeitgeschichte for “falsifications” in his

work. Although criticism may be appropriate for some isolated questions in his book, thefundamental source material testifies to the author’s full acquaintance – unlike that of otherhistorians – of the events that led to the Second World War. Therefore, a German historiancannot undervalue and cold-shoulder The Forced War, for the sources which Hoggan was ableto consult in the USA are practically inaccessible to German researchers. Hoggan’s statementsquoted in Truth For Germany have never been questioned, up to now, by historical science.


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as aggressor since 1933 already, and also the NSDAP from the first moment ofsuccess of their domestic policy in the Weimar Republic, then it is not difficult toimagine that it only requires the power of persuasion and a common interest, mostcertainly not facts, to regard Germany as “aggressor”.

At the time of occupying the Rhineland, Hitler stated in his speech at theReichstag: He was willing

a) to agree, once more, to the establishment of a demilitarized zone, on conditionof a mutual accord on the part of France and Belgium,

b) to conclude a Franco-Belgian-Dutch-German Non-Aggression Pact for 25years with British-Italian guarantee,

c) to rejoin the League of Nations, since the refusal to grant parity of rightswould meanwhile have been annulled.

Result: Refusal.15. August 1936: Soviet army doubled in size.16. Sustained rearmament on the part of Czecho-Slovakia, Poland and the

USSR, as well France and Britain.France’s attachment to her idea of “national security” also had harmful effects.

A sovereign state and a major power, in the heart of Europe, can hardly be expectedto orientate its policies in keeping with certain fixed ideas of its neighbours (Onemay transfer such a scheme of things to the Communists’ accusations which arepeppered throughout with their slogans of militarism, revanchism, imperialismetc. until they have established their own form of Communist system ofgovernment). Some years before Hitler came to power, the German ForeignMinister, Julius Curtius, had quite well described France’s view on the Europeansecurity problem, a view that was to remain unchanged:

“The French security system cannot be the basis for a European agreement.The political uncertainty of European conditions is to be attributed, primarily,to the Versailles treaty.” 15)

France’s security was effectively guaranteed before and after Hitler’s comingto power by:

1. France herself, that is, the Mother country with colonies of nearly 100 millionhuman beings;

2. a defence budget which, from the beginning, was double that of Germanyin proportion to gross domestic product,16) to say nothing of the fact that she hadbeen alone in adopting a policy of rearmament in 1918;

15) C. Höltje, Die Weimarer Republik und das Ost-Locarno-Problem 1919-1934, p. 208.16) See explanation p. 239 seq.


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3. the numerical superiority of military forces (in 1935, when Hitler couldmobilize 36 divisions, France had 41 divisions);16)

4. a lead in weapon-technology experience;5. at the time the largest and most modern fortifications on her Eastern border

– the Maginot Line;6. the adjacent demilitarized zone of the Rhineland;7. the very fact of being a Victor Nation, i.e. having been a decision-maker in

Europe after the First World War;8. the Versailles Treaty and, on top of that, the extremely generous and

unilaterally interpreted, almost as if given full power of attorney, guarantee –andarbitration accords of the Treaty of Locarno (1925);

9. the Covenant of the League of Nations;10. the benevolent attitude of all leading League of Nations member States, as

well as that of the United States of America and the British Dominions;11. military alliances with Great Britain,12. with Belgium,13. with Poland,14. with Czecho-Slovakia.Moreover, the security of France was not in the least threatened since at no

time had Germany ever given the slightest cause that could have been taken as anunfriendly or at all threatening stance towards France.

What countermeasures were open to Germany in the face of encirclement andthe highly-armed state of readiness of her adjoining neighbours (France beingonly one of their number!) by way of security guarantees? Germany did not haveone single military ally after 1918 and – at least until 1936 – did not in any waycome near to the armament and military potential of even one of her powerfulneighbours. Germany seemed – in contrast to France – to have no claim whatsoeverto even the minimum of self-protection. Furthermore, it would have been contraryto the British “law” of the European balance of power, if Britain were to haveassumed an objective and just attitude that would have produced a pacifyinginfluence on the European nations. A Germany after 1918, estranged from herneighbours by the unlawful looting of the Versailles victors and associates, wasfaced with the alternative, irrespective of whoever was to pick up the reigns ofgovernment: to either renounce her justified claims to national independence andequality of rights or else incur the displeasure of a power-coalition most eager forGermany to lose her power. Germany was deprived of those rights, and theparticular conditions of Central Europe were denied. Inevitably, German politicsof whatever persuasion had to take this into account.

The “German danger” was fabricated at a time when there were absolutely no


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grounds for this. Drawing attention to the “German danger”, France concludedher mutual assistance pact with the Soviet Union in 1936, without consideringthat a Franco-Russian alliance had already proven to be a contributory step towardsthe First World War! Public opinion in France, according to a statement of theFrench Ambassador in Berlin, was against an accord with Germany.17) This wasconfirmed when the German Foreign Minister, Konstantin von Neurath, informedthe American Ambassador in Paris, William C. Bullitt, on 18 May 1936:

“that ‘the deepest desire of Hitler was to come to a real understanding withFrance’, but every attempt he or Hitler had made to draw closer to the Frenchhad ‘resulted in either no reply from France or a rebuff’.” 18)

With Hitler’s taking of office, the policy of fear was carried on. Everybodyfelt even less inclined to admit to their own mistakes and to consider a change inattitude since we are dealing here with “the black sheep of international society”– Adolf Hitler. As there were also others who were insulting Germany and layingthe blame for each and every woe in the world at Hitler’s feet, so they too joinedthe movement of hatred and fear agitation in the hope to find favour with the restof the world and enhance their own countries’ security. In reality, however, theseagitators departed from their own professed ideas of equality of rights andsovereignty, of justice and of peace politics to such a degree that they onlymultiplied the possible causes for conflict. That which they had wanted to prevent,they have evoked – by means of fear and agitation. Yet, laws cannot ever be derivedfrom fear within the context of international co-existence – even less so fromgroundless fear.

Adolf Hitler stated in an interview in the “Daily Mail” in 1933:

“We find the charge that the German people are enthusiastically preparingfor war incomprehensible.This charge reveals a misunderstanding of the Germanrevolutionary cause. With a few exceptions we – leaders of the National Socialistmovement – are veterans. Show me the veteran who would prepare for war withenthusiasm!

Our youth is our whole future; we cherish them. How could we bring themup only to have them shot to bits on the battlefield?” 19)

Reich-President von Hindenburg in a radio address on 12 November 1933,the eve of the parliamentary elections:

17) A. François-Poncet, The Fateful Years: Memoirs of a French Ambassador in Berlin 1931-1938,p. 123.

18) C. Tansill, Back Door to War, p. 317.19) G. Rühle, Das Dritte Reich, vol. 1933, p. 294.


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“Those abroad who insinuate war-like intentions on our part are lying andthey are slandering us. Anyone who has experienced the horrors of war in threecampaigns, as I have, cannot possibly want to see another war, but rather wishonly for peace, and consider that keeping the peace is his first duty to the Germanpeople and to the world... With all our heart we wish to attain peace in honourand dignity.”20)

Adolf Hitler at Berlin’s Tempelhofer Field (airport), on 1 May 1934:

“ Even if others deny our people’s love of peace, the true spirit of our peopleis reflected most strongly and convincingly in the comparison of territorialLebensraum for the German nation and that of other nations….

Thus the German people did not want war, because they did not need it.They are capable of earning a decent living without foreign booty, tribute andcontributions. And they have already proved it.” 21)

Adolf Hitler, after the celebrations following the reintegration of the Saarlandin March 1935:

“With today’s techniques any war would amount to madness. Whoever talksof war should be barred from international politics. Even in a war on the smallestscale, utilization of modern weaponry would cause such destruction and blood-letting on both sides that I think only a madman could want a war nowadays.” 22)

Adolf Hitler at the Gauleiter conference at the Munich city hall, in 1936:

“All around the world today, a regular witch hunt is organized against me.Pick up any newspaper in the world and read it. The hatred expressed for me isterrifying. I understand the emigrants who have been fleeing our country likemice from a cat since my appointment as Chancellor. They scream that I havetaken away their wealth. Let them! I’m not impressed, and nor are the Germanpeople. But, just as I had perceived in 1919 and 1920, Germany’s enemies areorganizing throughout the world a menacing network of hatred and jealousywhilst pretending to attack only me. What have I done – what have the Germanpeople done to stir up such hatred amongst these rich men, the richest in theworld? We want to rebuild our Reich with our own strength and in peace.Suddenly our products are being boycotted and we are forced to adopt a policy

20) K. Wippermann, Deutscher Geschichtskalender, pp. 306-307.21) G. Rühle, op. cit., vol. 1934, p. 162.22) H. Frank, Im Angesicht des Galgens, p. 201.


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of self-sufficiency. Then they shout that this is against the principles of worldtrade! I can only ask myself: What do these eternal enemies of our work reallywant? They certainly don’t want to help us. Did they perhaps help the morallyirreproachable Weimar Republic? No! They could simply bypass thegovernment’s authority more easily then. The Jews of the entire world hate me.That is understandable, and I accept it. But using their power, the Jews aremounting forces the world over against our principles of life. Why does Englandhate me? Why the U.S.A.? Why France? I almost believe it is easier for me tocome to terms with Moscow than with the unpleasant democracies, satiatedwith wealth as they are. But I have troubled, sleepless nights. The thought of theworld powers united against us keeps me awake.” 23)

Hermann Göring, at a gathering of Veterans in Berlin in February 1937:

“There can be no better defenders of peace than yesterday’s front-line soldiers.I am convinced that they, more than anyone else, have the right to demand andto build peace. It is to those men, who for four hard years have gone, with theirweapon in hand, through the hell of war, the hell of the World War, that it belongsto organize the life of the nation, and I know that the veterans will defend andmaintain the blessings of peace for their people... Those who do not know thehorrors of war may talk of joyous battles to come. But we know the dreadfulcost of the final battle between the nations.” 24)

Already during the Weimar era, Hitler had to institute proceedings for libellousaction as the plaintiff time after time. He won every case.25) Not even once duringthat period was Hitler taken to court for defamation! In the domestic or partypolitical struggle for power this kind of agitation had been cultivated in the nameof freedom of speech. However, when on the international level, there is no controlto curb such excesses, when the stakes have now been raised from solely electionsuccess or defeat of political parties to the plateau of peace or war betweencountries, then such “intellectual bickering” assumes totally new dimensions. Butit was considered legitimate and “patriotic” to continue these agitations on theinternational field without regard to the rising threat to the European nations causedby this. The foreign press seemed to know no constraint when it came to stirringup hatred amongst nations and racial prejudice. Hitler’s remarks from his Reichstagspeech of 28 April 1939 went unheeded:

23) ibid., p. 194.24) C. Bewley, Hermann Göring, p. 214.25) H. Frank, op. cit., p. 68 seq. (two exceptions: settlements with two party members).


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“As far as Germany is concerned, I am not aware that threats of that kind arebeing made against other nations; but I do read every day in the democraticnewspapers lies about these threats. I read every day of German mobilization,of landings, of extortions and that against countries with whom we are livingnot only in perfect tranquillity, but with whom we have, in many cases, a deepfriendship.

...then it is criminal negligence, not to use a stronger expression, when headsof nations, who have at their disposal the power, are incapable of tightening thereins on their war-mongering press and so keep the world safe from thethreatening disaster of a military conflict.”

It ought to be the duty of journalism to promote understanding amongst nationsat all cost. To slander other nations and their leaders, to denigrate and treat themunfairly is a transgression of that duty. The democracies are particularly vulnerableto the dangers posed by an anonymous journalism, for the politician’s position isnot secure and responsibilities are not clear-cut. The Power Forces of society,with whom a press that is completely orientated to Mammon is aligned, can, atany moment, promote politicians whom they find acceptable and ruin politicianswho stand in the way of their financial interests, including those who are trulycommitted to peace (e.g. N. Chamberlain ).

The Reich government was charged with warlike intentions for the purpose ofworld domination. Was there any truth in this accusation? The National SocialistGerman Workers Party’s (NSDAP) coming to power was “to mean war” – thisone could hear everywhere at a time, when every other country in Europe wasprepared for war, judging by their armament – and defence potential, that is, allexcept Germany. That Hitler should have been planning war already in 1933 couldnot even be established at the IMT Proceedings in Nuremberg in 1945/46. Agovernment, such as the National Socialist government, having experienced internaland external political difficulties since coming to power, is hardly in a positionfrom a technical point of view to plan for immediate or long-term campaigns ofconquest. Was the astonishingly rapid surmounting of a political, economical,cultural and social chaos a sign of war preparations? Does one build motorwaysand passenger ships because one is planning for war? Does one perfect weapontechniques in order to commit crimes? All these intentions were imputed to theGerman leadership, never to other governments. Yet, a government that neglectseffective and prudent management of the people’s economic welfare, their securityand their future is unworthy and irresponsible – irrespective of how other powersmight judge these measures!


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The reflation of the German economy was already in 1933 shamelesslydescribed as “industrial mobilization”:

“Germany has always worked in a climate of a mobilization-regime. Workerswere labouring nine to ten hours a day. Factories were being converted to warindustry centres. Civilian consumption was reduced to an extremely low level.This resulted in conditions similar to those which existed at the time of theWorld War. Mr. Benes had stated as certain that by spring 1935, Germany wouldhave an Air Force of 4,000 planes and that was just the beginning.

What about the other powers?There was not the least sign of mobilization amongst them. There was only

the purest, most liberal peace-loving regime!” 26)

Talk about unsophisticated. These are not some dubious hacks, but men claimingto be “serious historians”, who fabricate these fantastic accounts. They have noqualms in interpreting the boosting of agricultural production as well as theancestral-estate-ruling (Erbhofordnung) as “plans for deflecting agriculture to aprogramme of war preparation.”27) They have described the National LabourService (Reichsarbeitsdienst) as an important factor in Germany’s secretrearmament, the discipline in Germany as an indication of craving revenge andlusting after war, and the historically determined – and accepted by all stateleaderships – centralization and uniformity of the political structuring as “evidence”for the “barbaric tyranny” and the “bellicose imperialistic intentions”. The politicalferment created by these assertions is the result of irresponsible agitation as alsoin a “terrible challenge to the free and civilized world because of Germantechnology”.28) And, according to the Communists, the Second World War beganin 1933 with Hitler’s accession to power.29)

How much did those agitators from yesterday and how much do the “historians”of today manage to cram into the trunk of the “Hitler fascist” rearmament, andthat not only from Communist quarters! Apparently rearmament means: theconstruction of barracks, airports, research laboratories, research institutes,administrative buildings, etc., installations with which all the other major powerswere amply equipped in 1933 but which, apparently, a great power such as Germanyought not to possess; motorways, passenger ships and state-owned industrial plants

26) L. Schwarzschild, Von Krieg zu Krieg, p. 435.27) O. Winzer, “Twelve Years of Struggle against Fascism and War” (in Russian), pp. 51-52.28) R. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 154. – “The terrible challenge that Nazi technology

had presented to the free and civilized world”.29) Kommunist, No. 2, February 1957, p. 60.


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(the Volkswagen Works and Hermann Göring Works, for example), not to mentionthe production of boots and trucks.30) The development of civil aviation had beenlargely neglected during the Weimar period. Other countries – in particular Englandand France – had carefully attended to their own civil aviation year after yearwithout prompting an angry word from the “world conscience”! Even after 1933,the yearly expenditure in that field by either of the two was far greater than whatHermann Göring proposed for Germany.31)

Some more has to be crammed in: the procurement of uniforms for the army,National Labour Service, the SS, SA, OT, HJ; the establishment of suchorganizations as the German Labour Front with its work booklet for members(corresponding to the soldier’s service booklet), the organization Todt etc., theeconomical planning in the four-year-programme, the appeal to national communityand comradeship, the physical and military training of the youth – in fact, Hitler’severy action from 1933 onwards is placed in the category “rearmament”.

“All measures taken [by Hitler], however, in order to stimulate the economy,to increase production, to raise export levels, to secure raw materials, to buildnew industries or to make agriculture self-sufficient, were calculated for theeventuality of war.” 32)

Neither cultural activities nor social policy escaped censure. This too waspressed into service – not only by the opinion-forming press, but also by “History”– as a “conspiracy against world peace”, since it was designed “to befog the masses,to deceive them and to transform them into willing instruments for the plannedwarfare and world domination”. – One has to marvel how far grown men willassume people’s stupidity, just to fan the flames of hatred and use it for their owninterest.

A great power that has spent six or rather seven years rearming intensively (inpreparation for a criminal war of world conquest, of course), to the exclusion ofall else, ought to have built up an enormous military capability. How patheticallysmall, however, were the domestic, the armament, the ammunition and equipmentprovisions and stocks in reality (see p. 239 seq. )! It was not superiority in atangible, material sense, but rather an exemplary military spirit, a bold strategy, alead in technology and by concentrating an effective and well-aimed weaponry atthe centre of the battle that made possible the victorious campaigns of the

30) Fr. Rück, 1919-1939: Friede ohne Sicherheit, p. 333.31) C. Bewley, op. cit., p. 120.32) H. Mau and H. Krausnick, Deutsche Geschichte der jüngsten Vergangenheit 1933-1945, p. 91.


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Wehrmacht in 1939-1940!With more justification than any other government could Hitler claim national

and historical necessity for getting Germany on her military feet again.

“Even a pacifist nation cannot allow its defensive capacity to drop below acertain level. When a state is no longer able to defend itself against an attack byits weakest neighbour, that low point is reached. This low point was for theGerman Reich, with her one hundred thousand-men-army without tanks andwithout heavy artillery and without reserves of trained yearly intakes and withoutan Air Force, so drastically undercut in the Versailles Treaty that even littleCzechoslovakia compared to this would appear armed to the teeth, let alonePoland, Belgium or France. A military alliance of these nations could bringGermany down with one blow. To say nothing of the colossus that is the RedArmy. Any illegal weapons stocks of the Weimar Republic period were really ofno consequence.

Therefore, when in 1935 Hitler announced his programme, providing forthe creation of 36 divisions, he could have had no other objective than totransform the totally abnormal and completely defenceless condition of the Reichinto a position that would at least ensure some capability for defence.” 33)

Hitler was not increasing the arms build-up in order to push the country intothe chaos of war at a time when it was working towards economic recovery andre-establishing national unity. In those circumstances no political leader wouldset himself such a mad and unachievable goal as a war of conquest! Did Hitler notbegin rearming only after the Versailles powers surrounding Germany had brokentheir pledge to pursue multilateral disarmament and ensure equality for Germany,had rejected the repeated proposals for disarmament of the German governments,yes, even intensified their own rearming and, furthermore, committed themselvesto alliances, formation of military blocs and verbal assurances? Every singleCabinet of the Weimar era faced the acute danger of invasion by her neighbours.In fact, invasions actually took place under the designation of “preventivemeasures”, and border skirmishes took place almost every day. Only reluctantlydid France renounce her claim to the left bank of the Rhine. Other countries wereclaiming German land far in excess of the boundaries drawn at Versailles: Czecho-Slovakia demanded the mountainous region of Glatz and the Lausitz, and Polandsought to annex all of Upper Silesia and East Prussia.

With Hitler’s accession to power this situation did not fundamentally changein Germany’s favour. Those factors mentioned were and they remained the starting-

33) H. Frank, op. cit., p. 240.


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point for Hitler’s course of action. Also, there is no sign of “German militarism”as forerunner and preparation for German plans of aggression. Even if a worldpress has distorted the facts for twenty years or more with unchanging monotonyand has accused Hitler of initiating rearmament, this may have served the egotisticalinterests of certain powers, but has not served the cause of historical truth. TheBritish historian A.J.P. Taylor, along with many other experts, has clearlyestablished that “the French had fired the starting-pistol for the arms race”34) andnot the Germans.

Not once did Hitler recklessly exploit an aggravated situation, as caused byany Victor power, in order to excuse an excessive rearming. At every stage ofdevelopment he patiently made offers and proposals of all possible variations ona basis of equality. The words of his Reichstag speech of 21 May 1935 should godown in History in full appreciation of their merit:

“It [the Reich government] is willing at anytime to keep within the confinesof arms-limitation to the same extent that it is undertaken by the other nations aswell. Of its own accord, the German Reich government has already announcedcertain proposed limitations. With this it has most clearly signalled the goodintentions of avoiding a never-ending arms race.”

A weak nation is in no position to demand anything in this world and, as theVersailles policy on Germany proved, not even the right to self-determination.Therefore, it would not have been in the German line of reasoning, after the bitteryears of impotent helplessness, to refuse any longer an economic and militaryand, thus, a political revival. Only with resolution and courage could Germanyregain her honour and her identity.

“However, all the measures necessary [for recovering the national honour]could not be secured by merely negotiating. But apart from that: The honour ofa nation cannot ever be negotiated, but it can only ever be taken. In this way,honour was not at one time bargained away, rather it was once taken away.” 35)

The German-Polish non aggression-and friendship pact of 1934 is seen bythese “peace politicians” as a “decisive step in the preparation for Germanaggression”.36)

“Hitler needed that pact to confuse the advocates of collective security and

34) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 77.35) G. Rühle, op. cit., vol. 1937, p. 47 (Hitler’s Reichstag speech, 30 January 1937).36) Geschichtsfälscher – Aus Geheimdokumenten über die Vorgeschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges,

p. 14.


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to show as an example that Europe’s real need was not for collective securitybut for bilateral agreements. This allowed the German aggressors to decidefreely when and with whom to make agreements, and to choose the timing oftheir attacks…

More and more audacious, Hitler took a number of actions in order to...”36)

Words fail in the light of so much magnanimous recognition of other nation’srights and of the generous respect of the German resolve for regeneration andinternational co-operation. Malicious agitating for war? – No, such argumenta-tions and evaluations are an exemplary indication of true peace politics – at leastthat’s what they were called when practised on the German people after 1945.

Since Hitler was trying to establish friendly relations with the neighbouringcountries in the East and indeed was able to shape them constructively – he wasaccused of aggression or rather of preparation for it! A look at the present timereveals that these days the agitating lacks the refinement of previous decades whichis all the more astonishing considering that now it is directed against other nationsand “regimes”.

In unequivocal terms many writers of memoirs after the Second World Warhave written about the situation at that time in Britain, France, the Soviet Unionand in other countries. One of these was the Soviet Ambassador to London, I.M.Maisky:

“Even such an experienced statesman as Vansittart, who then held the keypost of Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, said to me in the courseof a conversation in the summer of 1933:

‘Hitler has many difficulties and enemies, external and internal, to contendwith. ...

The French, the Belgians, the Czechs and the Poles are extremely suspiciousof him. ...

There are men who aspire to the first place in its ranks, and it will not beeasy for Hitler to cope with them. ...

You cannot exclude the possibility that the internal struggle will break upthe National Socialist Party… We must wait and see.’” 37)

Since Hitler had to expect meeting hostility from the Western Powers, fromthe East European nations, from international Jewry – in so far as it was in existenceand was influential 38) – but also from Bolshevism, then these considerations alone

37) I.M. Maisky, Who helped Hitler? Russian ed. p. 32, English ed. 1964, p. 36.38) In a frontpage article under the banner headline “Judea Declares War on Germany – Jews of all

the World Unite in Action” and the two-column heading “Boycott of German Goods”, the


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would have made impossible for the Reich government any of the imputed long-term planning of conquest. Besides, the First World War would have providedenough material to describe and illustrate the strategic positions of the Germannation. In addition, it was reasonable to suspect that there were already in placesecret treaties of the Soviet Union with Czecho-Slovakia and France, and thenFrance with Great Britain, so that at short notice an overwhelmingly massive frontagainst Germany could be deployed. Confronted with such impossible odds, anyReich government of whatever constitution would have to summon all theirresources to manage at all to resist even for a few weeks or months. In any case,all the German planning had to take account of these circumstances, which theydid, as the discovered documents prove.

It was slanderous to say that Hitler was going to attack England or France, orto assert that the honour of those two nations had been offended by the Munichagreement (of September 1938). Rather ridiculous and dangerous to draw suchconclusions from an accord reached freely by four sovereign statesmen, who thenafterwards strengthened it with additional declarations of peace and friendship! Itwas equally irresponsible to insinuate and spread throughout the world themonotonous propaganda charges that Hitler, in pursuit of his programmes, wantedto exterminate the Czechs, the Poles, the Danes, the Norwegians, the Rumanians,the Hungarians, thirty million Slaves, or the Jews, and that he wanted to conquerthe Ukraine or even the whole world! 39)

Daily Express (London) of 24 March 1933 wrote:“All Israel is uniting in wrath against the Nazi onslaught of Jews in Germany.…The appearance of the swastika symbol of a new Germany has called forth the Lion of Judah,the old battle symbol of Jewish defiance.

Fourteen million Jews dispersed throughout the world have banded together as one man todeclare war on the German persecutors of their co-religionists.…

The Jewish merchant prince is leaving his counting-house, the banker his boardroom, theshop-keeper his store, and the pedlar his humble barrow to join together in what has become aholy war to combat the Hitlerite enemies of the Jew.”

Pierre-Antoine Cousteau, Les Origines Secrètes de la Guerre 1939-45, p.117 (German ed. p. 94).Whether or not a worldwide Jewish organization existed at the time – and it would hardly be

an invention of the Germans – such a worldwide call to war, in reaction to the internal situationof another nation, presents all the features of a provocation for war.

39) The absurdity of such an imputation is shown by comparing the areas held then by those worldpowers, who were quite openly stating their intent to world domination, with that of the Germanliving space:Great Britain: 40 million square kilometresSoviet Russia: 19 million square kilometresUnited States: 9.5 million square kilometresGermany: 0.6 million square kilometres


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He neither had a programme for conquest, nor did he have a programme forextermination or suchlike!40) Hitler’s willingness for friendship with a strong Polandis historically provable right up to the last days of peace. The agitation of fear aspractised by the U.S. President F.D. Roosevelt with his declaration that America’s

Winston Churchill wrote on 19 August 1939, in the London weekly ‘Picture Post’ that Britaincould muster in just a few days three-quarters of the entire population of the world againstGermany. A. Buckreis, Politik des 20. Jahrhundert, p. 231.

40) The author has analysed, in another volume, the question of the “final solution to the Jewishproblem” which weighs heavily upon Hitler and Germany. Here it will suffice to note that noextermination programme existed before the war, and that the war-time brutalities cannot beused as reason for pre-war politics. The “final solution” was not the first and only war-crime,and historical research is still ongoing in this regard. Whoever wants to appraise the “finalsolution”, must fathom the war-guilt question; must ask and answer the question as to whowere the initiators of the expansion of the war; must deal with the aims of the war – and onemust slot into place the judging of the first seven big war-crimes and the numerous war-crimesof lesser proportion within the chronological time perspective and according to moral principles,i.e. measure with the same yard stick. These big war-crimes were:

1. The butchery of more than 20,000 ethnic Germans in Poland in September 1939.2. The deportation and partial liquidation of 1.7 million Poles under Soviet domination from

September 1939 to June 1941. Polish sources state that 400,000 were murdered by the Sovietsduring this operation; see M. Bardèche, Nuremberg II ou les faux-monnayeurs (German editionp. 49).

3. The murder of approximately 10,000 Polish army officers in the forest of Katyn in April1940.

4. The partisan war, proclaimed by Britain, later by all the other Allies – from May 1940onwards.

5. The bombing campaign against the civilian population, started by Britain as from May1940.

6. The slaughter of thousands and forcible displacement of 128,000 people from the BalticStates – 1940 to June 1941.

7. The forcible displacement of the entire Volga German population (600,000 persons),midsummer 1941.

In the meantime – since 1940 – the British government’s Diplomatic Chief advisor, Vansittart,in his official capacity, was calling from London unceasingly for genocide. In 1941 appeared inthe United States, with official approval, a book written by the president of the American peaceleague, Theodore Nathan Kaufman. This book was likewise calling for genocide in anticipationof the Morgenthau plan. Kaufman demanded the sterilisation of all the German people, and hehad calculated that within a period of two generations the extermination of Germanism wouldbe accomplished.

The “final solution” is to be placed chronologically according to this chain of events –beginning with autumn 1941, after the Soviet methods of warfare had been experienced.

The subsequent big war-crimes of the Allies, such as the expansion and the brutalizing of thewar in general (these should be put in a prior position, chronologically speaking) and thebombing of the civilian population and the partisan war in particular, the Morgenthau plan, theexpulsion of the East German people with the gruesome attendant circumstances, the bestial


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frontier was to be on the Rhine,41) because the Third Reich was threatening theUSA and was planning an attack on the South American states, can only bedescribed as unbridled war-mongering. Normally, these kind of fantasies wouldbe relegated to the land of Fairy Tales, had it not been for leading “Democrats”,who utilized these slogans for their own policies of inciting war amongst the nations.Furthermore, it cannot be argued that the anti-Semitism in Germany was ajustification for the war-policies directed against Germany, or that it should ithave been the trigger for it.

Because,a) no sovereign state has the right to interfere in the internal affairs of another.b) although there existed no anti-Semitism in Japan, it did not stop quite similar

war-policies against this nation, nor did it prevent the dropping of the two atomicbombs on a Japan that had already shown willingness for capitulation even beforethat event.

c) the anti-Semitism in other countries (e.g. in Poland or in the USSR) wasnever used as a reason for declaring war.

d) It was in particular the leading Western Powers (Britain, France and theUnited States) which were applying severe restrictions on the immigration offoreigners and Jews, and which also put into effect sustained resistance againstthese people from abroad forcing their way into the upper echelons of their society.It is not very convincing when especially these Powers then direct their moralindignation against a nation that was laying prostrate after a lost World War andwas, therefore, forced to accept an unwanted influx of 70,000 Jews from EasternEurope42) and their gradual taking over of the top positions in German society;and when this nation, after their recovery, then put up an opposition. It is even lesscredible when considering that they themselves also refused to admit Jewishemigrants from Germany.43)

To continue the serialization of the Versailles war guilt defamation, Germanyhad to remain labelled a so-called “criminal nation”. What was still named at

murdering of hundreds of thousands of disarmed German prisoners, especially in Eastern Europe,have not been given as reasons for the “final solution”, but then they stemmed demonstrablyfrom the same motives that already led to the first great crimes of war.

The killing of Jewish people during the war was a crime that nobody would want to deny.But it is equally undeniable that the way thereto had left a trail of crimes of such enormity andmonstrosity perpetrated by the other side, which in this magnitude, perversity and centralizeddirection is unequalled in the history of mankind. One cannot condemn the one and conceal theother. Every judgment must go back, as already stated, to the question of war guilt.

41) Roosevelt’s speech to Congress, 4 January 1939; cf. p. 355.42) K. Ploetz, Auszug aus der Geschichte (1939), p. 655.43) J.G. Burg, Schuld und Schicksal, p. 66 seq.


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Versailles “the instigation of the war for the conquest of Europe”, became twodecades later “conquest of the world” – without any scruples and without logicalfoundations. The irony of world history is that just those particular Powers whowere the most vociferous at blaming Germany for planning world conquest – theUSA, Great Britain and the Soviet Union – were the ones that were championingthis aim for themselves, or at least were working their way up to becoming the“world police”. The proof for

the Soviet Union: the Communist world-revolutionary-teachings have beento this day – including the years 1939-1941 – the consistently followed basis forthe Sovietic foreign policy.

Great Britain: Winston Churchill, a few months before his appointment asPrime Minister, wrote in 1939 to F.D. Roosevelt:

“Were I to become Prime Minister of Britain we could control the world.”44)

The United States: F.D. Roosevelt in a speech on 21 October 1944:

“ We must play a leading role in the community of Nations. ” 45)

This attitude of Roosevelt’s could already be noted well before the outbreakof war in 1939. (See the chapter on United States foreign policy.)

The German people or their government were no more belligerent than otherpeople or governments, and their methods in dealing with internal and foreignpolitics were the same or similar to other nations and governments. When judging,one must pass sentence equally on all. It would not be right to gloss over thereprehensible ways of one party, while denouncing the methods of the other party.On the way to reaching a verdict, one cannot avoid the question: Which importantEuropean state had relinquished, before the outbreak of war in 1939, just to keepintact the peace, her own provinces and sections of her population? It has to beacknowledged that Germany can answer this question with: Posen-West Prussia,East Upper Silesia, Southern Tyrol, Alsace-Lorraine, Eupen-Malmedy andNorthern Schleswig and the German colonies.

The causes of war need to be traced right back to the governments and thepress who, having lost all objectivity, were agitating and fanning fear, dread andinstability into the flames of hate, and inducing subsequently military defencemeasures and safety precautions. These are then followed by psychological andpolitical chain reactions, ultimately ending in a war. The Versailles victors and

44) C. Tansill, op. cit., p. 588.45) S.J. Rosenmann, The public papers and addresses of F. D. Roosevelt, vol. 1944 -1945, p. 349.


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their allies, but also the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), cannot beacquitted from the charge of having prepared the fertile ground for such chainreactions to flourish. They had resorted to using these dangerous weapons beforeHitler, during the Thirties and also after 1945, so that every nation is compelled toremain in a constant state of alert. Not even in the face of a Third World Warthreatening do they seem to have understood and recognized the root causes ofwar.

However, the nations of the world can no longer afford to have a mean andshabby propaganda that would shape the intellectual basis of their relations, ofinternational law and of the international moral code. They demand – have theright to demand! – total objectivity and justice! But not only for the present andthe future, but also for the past, because it is there that the foundation stone forpolitical action is laid!

Winston Churchilland the Party with the “Philosophy of Blood Lust”

Since the First World War, Winston Churchill represented public opinion inincreasing measure in Great Britain. Then an empire, Great Britain, moreover,maintained close political and economic ties with the World Powers of the Versaillesalliance. Churchill, who already by 1934 could look back on a brilliant career andan impressive line of ministerial posts, attained to the most powerful position inthe British government hierarchy as the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1924-1929).1)

He could count on the support of many like-minded in the British government andthe British political parties, as well as that of President Roosevelt’s powerful innercircle.

All throughout the Thirties right up to the beginning of war,

“He [Churchill] continued to write exhortations and expostulations infortnightly articles to Lord Beaverbrook’s Evening Standard which weresyndicated to the provincial papers, to Europe and America. Churchill wasprobably one of the most widely read and best-paid columnists in the world.”2)

His arguments, which even the Tories, his own party colleagues, found

1) I.M. Maisky, Who helped Hitler? p 55. (+ see Russian ed. p. 49)2) E. Hughes, Winston Churchill – British Bulldog – His Career in War and Peace, pp. 155, 156.


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“irresponsible”,2) are typical of the sense of value judgement (or lack of it) exercisedby the journalists and politicians in his camp; they were also typical of the partners-in-arms against Germany in the Second World War; typical was the war – andatrocity propaganda practised under his tutelage and typical also for the court-historians after this war. Black became white and white was black. The operativepoint was, that there was agitating without stopping, and that the kettle of hatewas kept boiling to advance one’s own selfish interests. Indeed, Winston Churchillwas a master at this trade.

“Without Hitler and the background of the events that spurred him to act,Churchill might never have held office again.” 3)

The countless preposterous statements, which are unequalled in history in theircoarseness and moral disqualification, were used by Churchill, when he, “drivenby political ambition,” was trying “to rouse Britain against the Nazis”.4) Theydevalue all the other fluctuating, extreme and often contradictory ideas of thisman. Who can take seriously Churchill’s words spoken in the House of Commonsin November 1933?

“We see that a philosophy of blood-lust is being inculcated into their youthto which no parallel can be found since the days of barbarism. .” 5)

The yardstick for his evaluation was not truth, nor was there an intention fortruth, but there was his “law”, the “law of the British Foreign Policy”.6) The mostwicked kind of defamation, daily malicious slandering in the press, all conceivablewar-mongering measures were permitted under this “law”, which recognized onlyone “authority” – Great Britain’s interests of might. It goes without saying thatGermany, especially after the unjust peace settlement of Versailles, had to countersuchlike displays of “public opinion” in Great Britain and other countries with anattitude of self-confidence. Churchill – in a logical continuation of his previouspolicy against the German people – “compensated” Stalin in the Second WorldWar by giving him German land with these words:

“I regard this war [1939-1945] against German aggression on the whole as aThirty-year-war from 1914 onwards.” 7)

3) ibid., p. 146.4) ibid., p. 145.5) W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. I, book I, ‘The Gathering Storm’, p. 113.6) See the chapter in the present work that deals specifically with this question.7) “Correspondence between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill during the Great Patriotic War of

1941-1945” (in Russian), vol. I, p. 203; letter from Churchill to Stalin of 27 February 1944.


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For him there existed no difference between Imperial Germany, the WeimarRepublic and National Socialism. Equally, it was a matter of indifference to himwhether it was concerning the Germans, the Poles, the French, the Spaniards, orothers nationalities – of prime importance for him was the interest of power; hewas foolish enough to elaborate this clearly in his memoirs and hand it down toposterity. All remarks and actions of this man – one of the “Big Three” in 1945 –about Germany and National Socialism must be seen in the light of this fundamentalposition and must also be considered in the light of the essential features of Britishforeign policy.

Churchill was still describing the Versailles diktat as “just” in 1934 and wasclaiming that the sole guilt of Germany for the First World War was definitelyestablished – contrary to the divergent historical research findings.8) A few monthsafter the conclusion of that “treaty” he had declared:

“It is not Germany’s power, but her weakness which we must fear.” 9)

Be it Germany’s strength or Germany’s weakness – Winston Churchill continuedhis polemics undaunted, always fanning the flames of fear. However, the fact thathe had deliberately caused this weakness at that time (to quote concrete figures:800,000 people were left to perish because of the British hunger-blockade, whichhad been extended to the Baltic Sea and which was continued after the armistice),he chose not to mention.10) On the contrary, on 3 March 1919 in the House ofCommons, he praised this hunger-blockade as shrewdness:

“We are holding all our means of coercion in full operation, or in immediatereadiness for use. We are enforcing the blockade with vigour… Germany isvery near starvation.... Now is therefore the moment to settle.”11)

To remove the Monarchy, “Militarism” and the “Police State” in Germany didnot satisfy him. The Weimar political parties likewise had to be humiliated anddriven to the edge. Why should he care, if in the process his ideas lost all credibility!Winston Churchill understood, furthermore, how to demonstrate his “British-patriotic-ethos” by agitating with fear and hate against Germany – a procedurewhich was and which is immensely “conducive” to spreading peace amongstnations. Insofar as he had made it his guiding principle to insist on a “German

8) H. Lutz, Verbrechervolk im Herzen Europas? p. 21. 9) F. Rück, 1919-1939: Friede ohne Sicherheit, p. 38.10) H. Lutz, op. cit., pp. 82, 259, 260.11) J.F.C. Fuller, The Second World War, p. 19; Herman Herda, Die Schuld der Anderen, p. 173.


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danger” and on the existence of a de facto “state of war” (“I look at this SecondWorld War as a Thirty-year-war against German aggression having started in1914”), and insofar as he was alternating between extreme admiration and extremecontempt for National Socialism and Fascism, he believed that it fell to Britain,amongst the sovereign European nations, to act as Versailles Police headquartersand moral guide for humanity. Even within the ranks of his own Party was he seenearly on as “war politician”.

“To the world at large, Churchill appeared to be the very embodiment of apolicy of war.”12)

Already during the First World War, Winston Churchill not only understoodbut also knew how to put into practice those methods that would stir up nationsagainst each other, provoking them into war. This is what he said then, speakingas a “Liberal”:

“…to raise a panic without reason, a policy of trying to raise ill-will betweentwo nations without cause.” 13)

Nevertheless, Winston Churchill did deliberately pursue this policy of creating“bad blood between two nations without a motive” for most of his life – at leastuntil 1945!

Those getting excited in Great Britain and putting Mussolini on a pedestalincluded Winston Churchill at a time, when Hitler was still distancing himselffrom Fascism.14) This man Winston Churchill, through his constant agitating,acquired a prestige, despite his often contradictory and unprincipled position,which he still enjoys today throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. This is proof ofhow little these nations have understood what has taken place in Europe in the lastfew decades.

Winston Churchill, the British “conservative politician”, who had declaredwith pride that he had spent three-quarters of his life either engaging in battle orpreparing for battle against Germany,15) and who would habitually refer to theSecond World War was a “Thirty-year-war against German aggression, beginningin 1914”, but who would also occasionally speak of it as an “unnecessary war”,said in 1935:

12) Viscount Templewood (S. Hoare), Nine Troubled Years, p. 386.13) A.C. Wedemeyer, Wedemeyer Reports! p. 13.14) E. Hughes, op. cit., p. 119.15) Nation Europa , November 1957, p. 50.


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“In fifteen years that have followed this resolve (of the housepainter, whohad set out to regain all) he has succeeded in restoring Germany to the mostpowerful position in Europe, and not only has he restored the position of hiscountry, but he has even, to a very great extent, reversed the results of the GreatWar… the vanquished are in the process of becoming the victors and the victorsthe vanquished… whatever else may be thought about these exploits they arecertainly among the most remarkable in the whole history of the world.”16)

Winston Churchill, in November 1935:

“While all these formidable transformations were occurring in Europe,Corporal Hitler was fighting his long, wearing battle for the German heart.

The story of that struggle cannot be read without admiration for the courage,the perseverance and the vital force which enabled him to challenge, defy,conciliate, or overcome all the authorities or resistances which barred his path.He, and the ever increasing legions who worked with him, certainly showed atthis time, in their patriotic ardour and love of country, that there was nothingthey would not do or dare, no sacrifice of life, limb and liberty that they wouldnot make themselves or inflict upon their opponents.”17)

In Churchill’s opinion, the Allies, Britain and France, were responsible forHitler’s success:

“…and the achievement by which the tables have been turned upon thecomplacent, feckless and purblind victors deserves to be reckoned a prodigy inthe history of the world and a prodigy which is inseparable from the personalexertions of life thrust of a single man.

…Those who have met Hitler face to face in public, business, or on socialterms, have found a highly competent, cool, well-informed functionary with anagreeable manner, a discerning smile, and few have been unaffected by a subtlepersonal magnetism.

Nor is this impression merely the dazzle of power. He exerted it on hiscompanions at every stage in his struggle, even when his fortunes were in thelowest depths...

One may dislike Hitler’s system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. Ifour country were defeated I hope we should find a champion as admirable torestore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.” 18)

Winston Churchill on 4 October 1938:

16) E. Hughes, op. cit., pp. 140-141.17) ibid., p. 143.18) ibid., p. 144, and L. P. Lochner, Die Mächtigen und der Tyrann, p. 214.


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“…There must not be lacking in our leadership something of that spirit ofthe Austrian corporal who, when all had fallen into ruins about him, and whenGermany seemed to have fallen forever into chaos, did not hesitate to marchforth against the vast array of victorious nations and has already turned thetables so decisively upon them.” 19)

It was this same man who, having

“ bestowed on the German leader the highest praise for his achievements,unlike any other foreign statesman has ever received from an Englishman,” 20)

nevertheless, painted at the same time a radically different picture of Hitler –against his better knowledge – a portrait with poisonous colours. In a privateconversation with the Polish Ambassador to London, Raczynski, on the eve of theMunich conference, he declared

“that the only hope lay in resolution and, if necessary, in war; and threatenedthat if Chamberlain once again decided on an inglorious retreat he, Churchill,would ‘show him’.” 21)

His commentary on that conference in the House of Commons of 5 October1938 ran thus:

“We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat… We are in the presenceof a disaster of the first magnitude which has befallen Great Britain and France.

The system of alliances in Central Europe upon which France has relied forher safety has been swept away, and I can see no means by which it can bereconstituted. The road down the Danube Valley to the Black Sea, the resourcesof corn and oil, the road which leads as far as Turkey, has been opened but therecan never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi Power,that Power which spurns Christian ethics, which cheers its onwards course by abarbarous paganism, which vaunts the spirit of aggression and conquest, whichderives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution, and uses, as we haveseen, with pitiless brutality the threat of murderous force.” 22)

Such were his comments in the face of a conference at which, for the first timesince 1919, the right to self-determination for Germans, for 3.5 million Sudeten-

19) E. Hughes, op. cit., p. 167.20) P.H. Nicoll, Britain’s Blunder (German ed.), p. 35. Statement by the renowned Anglo-American publicist Francis Neilson.21) E. Raczynski, In Allied London, p. 8.22) Winston Churchill, Into Battle: Speeches 1938-1940, pp. 42, 48, 50.


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Germans, was accomplished and accepted through peaceful negotiations! Evenwhen leaving aside the Munich conference, we do here find, in a writtencommunication from British Foreign Minister, Lord Halifax, to PresidentRoosevelt, dated 25 January 1939, a confirmation of the kind of “dignity” and“wisdom” and “security” and of the sort of “European esprit de corps” that wasbeing called into service across the Channel to work towards “peace”:

“The British Foreign Office learned that Hitler was ‘bitterly resentful at theMunich Agreement which baulked him of a localized war against Czechoslovakiaand demonstrated the will to peace of the German masses in opposition to thewar-mongering of the Nazi party. He feels personally humiliated by thisdemonstration. He regards Great Britain as primarily responsible for thishumiliation and his rage is therefore directed principally against this countrywhich he holds to be the chief obstacle now to the fulfilment of his furtherambitions’.

In the event of Germany picking a quarrel with Holland…” 23)

On 7 September 1938, in “The Times”, Winston Churchill endorsed thesurrender of the Sudetenland as “the best way out of the situation”,24) yet he declaredon 16 October 1938 (eighteen days after the Munich conference, which had realizedhis recommendation), in a radio broadcast to the American nation:

“She [the Czechoslovak republic] was a democratic model in Central Europe,a land in which minorities were better treated than anywhere else. She has beenforsaken, ruined, destroyed and swallowed up. Now, she is being digested...”

In the same tenor, claiming that the dictator had to let his party-pack-of-houndstaste blood at ever shorter intervals, and to give them hunting opportunities lestthey turn on him and tear him to pieces, he continued:

“Is this a call to war? Does anyone pretend that preparation for resistance toaggression is unleashing war? I declare it to be the sole guarantee of peace. Weneed the swift gathering of forces to confront not only military but moralaggression.” 25)

These are poisonous words indeed, which would surely have the most adverseeffect on any kind of international relations! A good number of our present day

23) C. Tansill, Back Door to War, p. 448.24) W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. I, book I, ’The Gathering Storm’, p. 232.25) Winston Churchill, His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, vol. VI, p. 6017.


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“historians” must regret not being able to furnish credible proof for attributingsuch words to Hitler.

Others will have equally regretted the fact that copious remarks from eminentpersonalities from abroad about Hitler and National Socialism are available whichare not only positive, but which even reveal an admiration not usually manifest:Lloyd George, who in 1918-1919 had “achieved what we wanted”, which meantto him that “one of our main trading competitors has been beaten to a pulp”,26)

declared in 1936, after having visited Hitler, when his daughter greeted him jokinglywith “Heil Hitler”:

“ Yes, ‘Heil Hitler!’ I say it too, for he is truly a great man.27)

I have never met a happier people than the Germans, and Hitler is one of thegreatest men among the distinctly great men that I have encountered.” 28)

After his return from Germany, he published a detailed article in the DailyExpress on 17 September 1936 entitled “I Talked to Hitler”:

“He rightly claimed at Nuremberg that in four years his movement has madea new Germany. It is not the Germany of the first decade that followed the war– broken, dejected, and bowed down with a sense of apprehension and impotence.It is now full of hope and confidence and of a renewed sense of determination tolead its own life without interference from any influence outside its own frontiers.

There is for the first time since the war a general sense of security. Thepeople are more cheerful. There is a greater sense of general gaiety of spiritthroughout the land. It is a happier Germany. I saw it everywhere, and EnglishmenI met during my trip and who knew Germany well were very impressed with thechange.

One man has accomplished this miracle… This is the new mood amongstthe German youth. With almost religious fervour they believe in the movementand in their Führer. This impressed me more than anything I witnessed duringmy short visit to the new Germany. There was a revivalist atmosphere. It had anextraordinary effect in unifying the nation. Catholic and Protestant, Prussianand Bavarian, employer and workman, rich or poor, have been consolidatedinto one people. Religious, provincial and class origins no longer divide thenation. There is a passion for unity born of dire necessity.”29)

26) H. Grimm, Warum – Woher – Aber Wohin? pp. 583-584.27) K. Hierl, Im Dienst für Deutschland, p. 163.28) H. Grimm in Nation Europa, February 1968, p. 68, quoting British General J.F.C. Fuller.29) P.H. Nicoll, Britain’s Blunder (German ed.), pp. 74-77: Complete article reproduced.


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At the Teheran conference in November 1943, thus at the height of the German-Soviet war, Stalin

“emphasized that only a very able man could accomplish what Hitler haddone in solidifying the German people...”30)

Theodor Heuss, in 1932:

“Nobody can withhold recognition of the indefatigability of this man [Hitler]who, after release from the fortress, began to fashion – and he understood how– with care, tenacity and with deliberation from the shattered remains a vesselanew.”31)

“ Of course, Hitler’s achievements are not given their full due, if he wasonly recognized as the great and tireless organizer.

He also stirred souls, and by his appearance inspired an enthusiasm that waswilling to sacrifice and dedicate.” 32)

Viscount Rothermere, (until 1939 head of the press office of the Ministry forInformation, member of the British parliament, after 1945 on the board of directorsof the Reuter agency and one of the most powerful newspaper men in the world),had nothing to gain by sharing his positive comments on Hitler; on the contrary, itcould only be to his detriment. Nevertheless, after having emphasized Hitler’sdesire for peace, he found the following words:

“Great numbers of people in England regard Herr Hitler as an ogre, but Iwould like to tell them how I have found him. He exudes good-fellowship. He issimple, unaffected and obviously sincere. It is untrue that he habitually addressesprivate individuals as if they were public meetings.

He is supremely intelligent. There are only two others I have known to whomI could apply this remark – Lord Northcliffe and Mr. Lloyd George. If you askHerr Hitler a question, he makes an instant reply full of information and eminentgood sense. There is no man living whose promise given in regard to somethingof real moment I would sooner take.

He believes that Germany has a divine mission and that the German peopleare destined to save Europe from the designs of revolutionary Communism. Hehas a great sense of the sanctity of the family, to which Communism isantagonistic, and in Germany has stopped the publication of all indecent books,

30) R. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 782.

31) T. Heuss, Hitlers Weg, p. 5.32) ibid., p. 119.


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the production of suggestive plays and films, and has thoroughly cleaned up themoral life of the nation…

I was talking with Hitler some eighteen months ago when he said, ‘CertainEnglish circles in Europe speak of me as an adventurer. My reply is thatadventurers made the British Empire.’…

His courtesy is beyond words, and men and women alike are captivated byhis ready and disarming smile.

He is a man of rare culture. His knowledge of music, painting and architectureis profound.

Many people seemed to find difficulty in reconciling the conception of aman of culture with a man of resolute action. …

It is probable that if a poll were taken to decide who in common estimationis the greatest political Englishman in our history, the name of Cromwell wouldlead all others. But Cromwell was a man of the greatest determination and themost ruthless methods.” 33)

In the widely circulated British newspaper “The Daily Mail” was stated on 20May 1938:

“Herr Hitler’s policy is achievement without bloodshed. He reachedsupremacy in Germany, a country of 68,000,000 people, with little loss of life.Austria was brought into the German Empire without a single shot being fired.

In the troubles in Palestine during the past five years more people have losttheir lives than in Germany and Austria from the establishment of the Hitlerrégime to the present time.” 33)

A party with a “philosophy of blood-lust” reminiscent of the times of barbarismcould never conquer the heart of a nation of 80 million people whom a period ofreal hardship had necessarily left cautious and highly alert. Such a party couldnever win any battle, whether fighting with intellectual or material tools, against amodern and powerful state machinery, nor against the numerous and disciplinedorganizations of the work force, of the bourgeoisie, of industry and commerce,nor against the press; it could not expect to get the better of the experiencedleadership of the party or of experts in various fields, nor overcome the predominantideology and the manifold foreign influences. Such a party could never gain victorydespite ten years of oppression, slandering, economic discrimination and financialplight – alone, without allies, without friends or without benefactors.

“ It would be missing the point totally, while sending one’s imagination inthat direction (the financing of the party by industry), to want to disregard the

33) V. Rothermere, Warnings and Predictions , pp. 135-137.


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fact that the great potency of the NSDAP is based on the self-financing throughits membership and in its ability to finance public meetings with a contributionfrom those attending. This (self-financing) is not simply a great organizationalfeat, but at its root is found the idealism of the thousand fold willingness tomake sacrifices.” 34)

Whoever embraced the NSDAP before 1933 had to expect to make unbelievablesacrifices and not only of a material nature. A member often put his job in danger,dedicated his free time, even spent his nest egg – more than likely from hisunemployment benefit. He volunteered his health and even the life and destiny ofhis family for the benefit of the movement. He accepted these hardships becausehis faith in a united and worthy Germany, in a public-spirited Germany withoutclass struggle and without promiscuity, was stronger than all the injustices that hehad to endure.

“The ethos of the National Socialist movement, and this is perhaps its greatestpsychological achievement, lies embedded in that the separation of class and ofstatus and the professional and educational differences could be surmounted byits great momentum, stronger than most of the other parties.”35)

Now, if certain types from abroad or indeed the managers thereabouts of publicopinion cannot fathom how hundreds of thousands – even millions – of Germanscould shoulder labouring and effort without pay and who, fired with idealism,took it upon themselves to pay for their uniforms, for travel expenses, for additionalcosts over and above their party dues, at a time of a threatening economic crisisand unemployment – year after year! – while at the same time risking theirlivelihood and their lives, yes, nonetheless, it was so. No party, whether in Germanyor anywhere else in the world, has ever known or has even come close to everhaving known such selfless spirit of sacrifice among its large following – not at atime of political persecution and not at a time of political power. This, all for a“philosophy of blood-lust”?

“Admiringly I perceive that he [Hitler] is almost the first one in the worldwho has moved multitudes without any coercion and also without any tangiblebenefits to follow of their own free will.” 36)

Hitler’s rise to power was achieved without bloodshed and in a disciplinedmanner without equal in the history of revolutionary movements. Furthermore, at

34) T. Heuss, op. cit., p. 123.35) ibid., p. 58.36) H. Grimm, Von der bürgerlichen Ehre und bürgerlichen Notwendigkeit, p. 17.


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the earliest possible date – 5 March 1933 – the people were given the opportunityto vote in the Reichstag elections, the Landtag (state parliament) and the localelections to express freely their consensus regarding the recent events.

The words of the highly respected democrat Friedrich Naumann (1860-1919)would deserve to be considered in any objective evaluation:

“It is useless to try to judge revolutionary thinking according to moral criteria,for the political systems in which we live today have not arisen from the preceptsof the Penny catechism. All our present is founded on yesterday’s acts of violence.There is not one political power that has not spilled blood while coming intoexistence.” 37)

Some thirty years later, an American President reached conclusions similar tothose that the man from Berlin had realized already after the First World War.President John F. Kennedy on 24 April 1961:

“The complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft societies are about to be sweptaway on the driftwood of history. Only somebody strong, industrious, determined,courageous and far-seeing, somebody who recognizes the nature of our conflict,is the one who can possibly survive anyhow.” 38)

In 1935 the former German Ambassador to London, later the Reich ForeignMinister, von Ribbentrop, wrote to Lord Allen of Hurtwood:

“I think I am not anticipating wrongly when I state that an historical accountof the National Socialist struggle for power – analysed at a future date in anobjective manner – will acknowledge this as, frankly, the classic example of arevolution that, after all, only a nation of the highest cultural level could carryout.” 39)

But really, the world did not appreciate that German misery was being curedand that there was an end to German discord – the world did not want to respectthe German posture. It was that precisely one did not want. One condemned theway the Germans intended to overcome their misery and the way they contemplateddwelling in their historical sphere. The world only perceived the threat to theirunlawful order in Europe and that was sufficient reason to set in motion the fullforce of a political polemic while their worldwide propaganda machine was given

37) F. Lenz, Zauber um Dr Schacht, p. 17.38) Nation Europa , No. 6, June 1961, p. 40.39) G. Rühle, Das Dritte Reich , vol. 1935, p. 327.


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the “full steam ahead”, without any consideration of their responsibility to theirown people. “A philosophy of blood-lust remindful of the times of the barbarians”– that was the observation of this world. The hate campaigns were so intense thateven in deepest peacetime a German, in the eyes of others, was not to be regardedas an equal person with equal rights, must not even be classed as a true humanbeing, but as a barbarian who could show forth nothing but hideousness and whowas striving for world domination. Is it likely that a people, uniting in the face ofbitter privation, who are not writing the history of their revolution for amusementor simply to pass the time, should really have nothing better to occupy themselveswith than this? Is it not impudent war-mongering to shriek such anti-Germanopinions and slogans to the world?

The contradictions that evolved from these attitudes and primitive arguments,even from respected politicians, represent the measure of ignorance whichpermitted the denial of the truth about Germany, or rather the National Socialistmovement. Already decades before 1933 had the managers of “public opinion”been engaged in non-stop conditioning of public thinking and, after 1945, withever increasing self-satisfaction, they inundated all of the public life worldwide.

Those politicians and journalists, having indulged for decades in these grotesquesmear campaigns, will need to examine their deeds now more closely andobjectively in view of the Second World War and in view of the portentous worldpolitical situation. They should ask themselves to what extent they – they personally– contributed, whether through negligence or deliberately, to the worsening ofinternational tensions at the time, when they – without any investigation of proof– were spreading falsehood under their seal of authority and then, thoughtlessly,determined a foreign policy and direction that may have furthered their own careerbut which, however, proved detrimental to the destiny of nations. Starting outfrom power interests, they exploited feelings of inferiority, antipathy and envy inorder to incite fear, thus bringing on a psychosis that would leave no room forobjectivity and level-headedness. They attributed every imaginable quality andevery virtue to themselves whilst refusing outright to recognize those of the otherside. They, above all, have forfeited the right to be scandalized by Hitler’s“methods” … They, to wit, did not only endorse the upholding of a state of injusticein Europe, but they also showed no scruple when it came to keeping Germanydown with combined forces and with every possible means to hand.

The slanderers of the German Reich and the German people made no distinctionbetween the German Monarchy, the Weimar Republic, or the Third Reich. Thetenor and form of their songs of hate about Hitler were barely different from thoseof the turn of the century and after 1918. A perusal of newspapers or books of all


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the various nations in those days will clearly testify which one of the nations inquestion during all the years has practised more self-control, has demonstratedmore willingness for reconciliation and has shown more magnanimity. It wasGermany! Furthermore, it also gives a clear proof of the places where war-favourable politicians, the military and journalists were ruling the roost: It was inthe countries of the Versailles Victors and their allies!

Germany has always recognized and valued Great Britain as a brother nation,has courted France as a culturally highly advanced neighbour, has admired theUnited States for their economical and technological achievements, has recognizedand emphasized the need for a peaceable co-existence with Poland – before 1933as well as during the time of Hitler. These countries, however, did not shy away –although Germany had given the world a great many outstanding scientists andartists and thus a rich culture – from putting her as “a nation of barbarians” in thestocks of “public world opinion” – already before Hitler, before the First WorldWar, but especially since “the return to barbarism” in 1933. No German governmenteither before or after 1918, that is to say in spite of an unjust Versailles “Treaty”and post-war politics, incited hatred against the former Reich’s enemies. Suchconduct was reserved by the political and journalistic spokesmen of the otherside. They were hurling their hatred, their lies and defamations, year in, year out,in frightening dedication, at the whole German nation, while thinking themselvesto be paragons of virtue. Whereas German literature – also in Hitler’s time – wasfilled with respect for other peoples’ national traditions, notions of reconciliation,love of the scientific approach and historical truths, beyond her borders a hate-filled tendency was encouraged that was teaching an historical enmity against theGerman people and the German right to life in countless books, newspapers andmagazines. (Naturally, there were a few exceptions on both sides.)

One of the spokesmen of many years’ standing was Winston Churchill! While Churchill, in his capacity as the British Chancellor of the Exchequer,

was supporting France’s bullying victor-politics and the war reparations whilerefusing any concessions to the Weimar Republic, he later on turned against this“lethargy and folly”.40) Temporarily full of admiration for Hitler, already by October1938, after the Munich conference, “he wanted to come to blows”.41)

“ Churchill presumably would have gone to war with Germany at the time ofMunich.” 42)

40) E. Hughes, op. cit., pp. 142-143.41) O. Abetz, Das offene Problem, p. 103.42) E. Hughes, op. cit., p. 174.


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If Hitler succeeded in establishing good relations with neighbouring states, ifhe made steps towards true peace with them, Churchill, never at a loss for “reasons”,declared that those countries had accepted German proposals only “…in fear ofthe rise of the Nazi power...” 43) From emphatic critic of the “Polish Corridor”,Churchill changed to its fiercest opponent of Hitler’s wished-for return of Danzigand the building of an extraterritorial motorway through West Prussia, a wish thatwas far more modest than his formerly proposed and regarded as necessary peacesettlement.44)

Churchill who noted that

“...everyone can see how Communism rots the soul of a nation; how itmakes it abject and hungry in peace and proves it base and abominable inwar… it might well herald a return to the Dark Ages when every vestige ofhuman progress during two thousand years would be engulfed,” 45)

could barely check his enthusiasm, when in 1939 Neville Chamberlain shookthe “blood-stained hand of Bolshevism” and was trying to incorporate “the slaverythat was worse than death” into his military alliance system .45) He again changedhis mind with regard to the Soviets during the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940,only to do another about-turn at the outset of the Russian campaign in 1941, hastilymaking a “pact with the Devil” to defeat Hitler regardless of the consequences forthe British Empire.45) + 46) His motto:

“I have only one purpose, the destruction of Hitler, and my life is muchsimplified thereby.” 47)

Later, upon the discovery in May 1943 of the mass graves in Katyn forest,where over 10,000 Polish officers were found to have been shot in the neck (morethan 4,000 bodies had been exhumed), Churchill “justified” his ideologicalleapfrogging to his exiled Polish “friends”:

“ ‘The Bolshevists can be very cruel’. He added, however, that theirruthlessness is a source of strength, and to our advantage as far as destroyingthe Germans is concerned.” 48)

43) W. Churchill, Into Battle: Speeches 1938-1940, p. 49.44) E. Hughes, op. cit., p. 169.45) ibid., p. 178.46) E.J. Reichenberger, Europa in Trümmern, p. 130.47) E. Hughes, op. cit., p. 146.48) E. Raczynski, op. cit., p. 141.


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Ultimately, the “sole test of the fitness of an ally was the possible military andmaterial aid that he might give at the moment, whether he be monarchist, Fascistor Communist – presumably even a cannibal”.49)

Churchill, for more than twenty years a pioneer against Bolshevism and of“freedom for the small nations”, was now directing in grandiloquent self-satisfaction “the chorus of Hosannas and Hallelujahs as the Red Army swept overPoland, East Prussia” 50), Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and the Balkan States andembedded itself in Central Europe.

His motto from the First World War remained unchanged:

“ ‘This’, he said, with a wave of his hand to the charts on the wall so plainlybetokening the war, ‘this is what I live for.’…

How often have we heard him say by way of encouragement in difficultcircumstances, ‘War is a game to be played with a smiling face.’ ” 51)

His philosophy, tailored to this, his life’s work, is expounded in his memoirs:

“‘In wartime’, I said, ‘truth is so precious that she should always be attendedby a bodyguard of lies’. Stalin and his comrades greatly appreciated this remarkwhen it was translated, and upon this note our formal conference ended gaily.”52)

As a favour to the Soviets, he denied his Polish “friends” the official acceptanceof a public resolution that was calling for the acknowledgment of “principles ofinternational law”, since “that might provoke the Soviets”.53)

After 1945, after the Second World War and evidently after having read MeinKampf belatedly, Churchill thought to have “killed the wrong pig” (as if the worldwere a slaughterhouse and England was the butcher).54) Some months before,according to his then current opinion, he was praising the “right pig” at the Yaltaconference:

“This time I drink it with a warmer feeling than at previous meetings… Wefeel we have a friend [Stalin] whom we can trust... ” 55)

49) E. Hughes, op. cit., p. 239.

50) ibid., p. 200.51) ibid., pp. 78, 80.52) W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. V, book II, ‘Teheran to Rome’, p. 338.53) E. Raczynski, op. cit., p. 181.54) H. Sündermann, Alter Feind was nun? p. 55.55) W. Churchill, op. cit., vol. VI, book II, ‘The Iron Curtain’, p. 343.


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Speaking in the House of Commons on 27 February 1945, a few weeks afterYalta:

“The impression I brought back from the Crimea, and from all other contactsis that Marshal Stalin and the Soviet leaders wish to live in honourable friendshipand equality with the western democracies. I also feel that their word is theirbond. I know of no government which stands to its obligations more solidlythan the Russian Soviet government. I absolutely decline to embark here on adiscussion about Russian good faith.” 56)

Several months later, on 7 November 1945, again in the House of Commons:

“Here I wish to say how glad we all are to know and feel that GeneralissimoStalin has the wheel tightly in his hands steering his mighty ship. Personally, Icannot feel anything but a deep admiration for this truly great man, the father ofhis country, the ruler of its destiny in times of peace and war, and the victoriousdefender of life in these times of war.” 57)

From the time of the First World War, Hitler had realized the absurdity of anyGerman-British War, and of war in general. Winston Churchill becomes aware ofthis only after1945, when he described the Second World War as an “unnecessarywar” and was demanding precisely that which the Germans had already tackledtwenty to thirty years earlier, namely to erect a bulwark against Bolshevism.58)

“There never was a war more easy to prevent than this last horror throughwhich we have passed.” 59)

Britain should have shown more astuteness – according to his opinion – afterthe First World War, by keeping Germany permanently pinned down militarilyspeaking. Certainly, he was not at all inclined to concede to Germany equality ininternational law or to contribute in the slightest to the restoration of Germanhonour and Germany’s rights. He may have concluded after the war that the resultin 1945 was different from that “for which Britain went to battle”, and that theWest, as of now, must protect the world “from the two giant marauders, war and

56) E. J. Rozek, Allied Wartime Diplomacy – A Pattern in Poland, p. 359, and R. Grenfell,Unconditional Hatred, p. 135.

57) F.B. Czarnomski, The Wisdom of Winston Churchill, p. 349.58) Winston Churchill, His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, vol. VII, p. 7251: Speech on 16 November

1945 in Brussels; also The Sinews of Peace.59) ibid., Speech in Metz on 14 July 1946; also The Sinews of Peace.


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tyranny” 60) – nevertheless, that this should be the consequential outcome of hisown policies, he denied. Just as he refused to admit that it was exactly againstthese selfsame policies and these consequences that Germany had been fighting.

“…Churchill could always turn on the orations to suit the occasion.…Consistency was never Churchill’s strong point. But one might have

expected him to remember what he had written on a previous page. Hecontradicted himself.” 61)

It was not so much the actuality of an aggression, nor was it the extent of anaggression, and neither was it the motive or the immediate cause of an aggressionthat proved the decisive factor for Churchill – instead, for him it was only a questionof who was the one guilty of an “aggression”. The term “aggression”, moreover,was given the widest possible interpretation (e.g. the return to the Reich of ethnicGermans, who had been arbitrarily detached from it and were put underundemocratic foreign rule), while at the same time the actual aggressions andquite obviously illegal conduct of the other side was not recognized. Not evenworld-views (Weltanschauungen) or concepts of states were used as a yardstick,since the determining point for him regarding his views on these questions waspurely the personal benefit at that moment in time.

Love for the small nations was never a deciding factor, as he sacrificed thesenations without a moment’s hesitation to his personal interests.

“This, coupled with Churchill’s lack of any war ideals or post-war plan,shows the complete fraud in his pretensions to leading a great crusade for a‘free world’.” 62)

Under the pretext of a humanitarian act of concern Churchill signed the AtlanticCharter – although a short time later he wishes it to be interpreted as valid only forthe British Empire. At the same time he not only condones but orders the systematic“wiping out” of open German cities, “every possible use of violence”, “everydegree of terror”63) …“(who was) killing the most Germans (and suggest meansby which we could help them) to kill more”,64) puts his stamp a few years later tothe Morgenthau Plan and praises the expulsion of millions of Germans from their

60) ibid., Speech in Fulton, Missouri (USA), 5 March 1946; also The Sinews of Peace.61) E. Hughes, op. cit., pp. 152-153.62) ibid., p. 239.63) F.J.P. Veale, Advance to Barbarism, p. 193, and M. Bardèche, Nuremberg II ou les Faux

Monneyeurs, pp. 45-46.64) R. Grenfell, op. cit., pp. 104-105.


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homelands as the “most satisfactory and permanent method”65) which, however, isnot based on any legal justification, but is meant as “compensation” for the territoryPoland lost to the Soviet Union.66)

“There will be no more mixture of peoples which has caused endless quarrels.I am not alarmed by the reduction of the population. Six million Germans havelost their lives in the War. We can expect that by the end of the war many morewill be killed, and there will be room for those who shall be expelled.” 65)

Churchill in Yalta, 7 February 1945:

“We have killed five or six million and we shall very likely kill an additionalmillion before this war comes to an end. Because of this there should be enoughroom in Germany for the transfer of people who will surely be needed. Withthat we shall have no problem as long as the transfer remains in the properproportion.” 66)

Even with regard to nations of culture, these “Big Three” of the “civilizedcountries” were basing their policies on the “shopkeeper mentality” of horse-trading and compensating as in the far-off days of antiquity, when the vanquishedwere enslaved and became a marketable commodity, their homes the spoils ofwar; only now with one difference, namely, in the 20th century all is done in thename of humanity, justice, a law-abiding state, Christianity and democracy.Furthermore, it is now happening not to some thousands of savage warriors, ratherit is now being perpetrated on millions of civilized European people. That duringthis “humane resettlement”, as the expulsion was called in the Potsdam protocols,3.8 million German people went to their death67) (according to another inquiryalmost 3 million68)), that the remainder could come away with their bare livesunder the most gruesome circumstances, that during all of these happenings, allGermans – not for the first time in the 20th century – were regarded as outlaws, allof this does not seem to have burdened Churchill’s conscience. Yes, indeed, it iseven on the agenda of the “Big Three” that “during this resettlement the numberof Germans must be considerably reduced”69) ! The exiled Polish Prime MinisterMikolajcyk, is given a “sedative” by Churchill:

65) Voices of History, 1944-1945, Speeches and Papers of Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Chiang, Hitlerand other Leaders, p. 615: Churchill addressing the House of Commons on 15 December 1944.

66) Die Jalta Dokumente, pp. 164, 171, 222, 298.67) F. Gause, Deutsch-slawische Schicksalsgemeinschaft, p. 288.68) Statistisches Bundesamt, Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste, pp. 37, 44.69) E.J. Reichenberger, Fahrt durch besiegtes Land, p.8: F.D. Roosevelt to former Czechoslovak

President Benes, 12 May 1943.


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“Do not worry about the five or more million Germans... Stalin will takecare of that. You will have no difficulties with them: they will have ceased toexist.” 70)

On the 30 June 1943, Churchill, “possessed by a destructive mania” 71), declaredin London:

“What I understand by ‘unconditional surrender’ is that the Germans haveno right to claim any special treatment.” 72)

Whoever is acquainted with these facts and their initiators will also know whoin reality the people are with a “philosophy of blood-lust, reminiscent of the timesof barbarism”. Churchill himself is one of their pioneers!

Deliberately does this man conceal fundamental truths at the time of the“Nuremberg War Crimes Trials” and supports numerous historical falsifications.Winston Churchill the Crusader, who supposedly had done all for “ethicalprinciples” and in particular for “the deliverance of Christendom”, admits in theend to his faith defenders:

“I am not a religiously-minded man.” 73)

Just as he had been without scruples when agitating for war against Germany,and later when directing it and when deciding the fate of his defeated enemy, orrather, when he was one of the influential decision makers, so did he deal with hisally, Poland.

In Yalta, 1945, he admitted:

“Personally the Poles do not interest me.” 74)

Nonetheless, it seems that in 1939 the Poles did interest him, because withtheir help he could whip the British public and the British government into a war-psychosis in order to, as he stated in a telegram to Roosevelt, even before he hadbecome Prime Minister, together with the US President, “control the world”.75) At

70) E.J. Reichenberger, Wider Willkür und Machtrausch, p. 400, quotes: Review of World Affairs, 5October 1945.

71) E. Spetzler, Luftkrieg und Menschlichkeit, p. 313.72) E. Deuerlein, Die Einheit Deutschlands, p. 3473) E.J. Reichenberger, Europa in Trümmern, p. 91, quotes: Time Magazine, 25 August 1941, p. 13.74) Die Jalta Dokumente, p. 266.75) C. Tansill, op. cit., p. 588.


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the height of the war he made it known to the Poles through their Prime MinisterMikolajczyk that he had no further interest in them:

“You’re no government.... You’re a callous people who want to wreck Europe.I shall leave you to your own troubles.... You have only miserable, petty, selfishinterests in mind... If you want to conquer Russia, we shall let you go your ownway.... You ought to be in a lunatic asylum...”.76)

While the Polish army was expected to continue fighting for British objectivesand interests, in London the Polish government in exile was to swallow, “in thename of high moral principles”, every lie invented to discredit them, also from theBritish press and Members of Parliament.77)

This was the time when Churchill declared to his protégés that there was noother alternative but the final demise of their nation.77) When the Red Army movedinto Poland in 1944, and he was continually receiving alarming news concerningthe forceful methods employed by the Bolsheviks, Churchill issued instructionsthat “the public opinion” was to be distracted by increased atrocity propagandaagainst Germany.78) Truly, the Poles held no more interest for him!

His French allies, too, were given notable proof of Churchill’s “loyalty”, whenhe gave orders to destroy the French Fleet anchored at Mers-el-Kebir (near Oran)on 3 July 1940, and when he later had civilian cities in France bombed.79)

At the selfsame moment that he is displaying his disregard for the wounds anddistress of a bleeding Europe, and when he does not stop stressing his friendshipwith the Soviet Union, he is making preparations to again press weapons intoGerman soldiers’ hands for a possible fight against Bolshevism.80) – AlthoughHitler was depicted as the “wrong pig”, he nevertheless kept his place as the manwho “wanted to conquer the world”, in spite of the fact that he had never had theseaspirations, that he had relinquished territories, that he had brought back “homeinto the Reich” expatriate groups of Germans, and that he had restricted himselfin 1940 to only partly occupying France – and the French colonies not at all.Churchill, who reproached Hitler for having strengthened Germany to such a pointwhere she could defend Europe alone or in conjunction with other nations againstBolshevism’s determination to world conquest, was demanding for himself the

76) S.L. Sharp, Poland – White Eagle on a Red Field, p. 193.77) E. Raczynski, op. cit., pp. 213, 240.78) E. Rozek, op. cit., p. 210.79) E. Spetzler, op. cit., p. 341 seq.80) H. Sündermann, op. cit., p.126.


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leadership of “the Big Three”, or rather, “Four Policemen”, placed over all thecountries in the world81) – including Poland that he, “like a house on wheels”, waspushing hither and thither, without ever consulting Poland.82)

After an eight-hour discussion with Winston Churchill at the end of May 1945,Truman’s special envoy and former US Ambassador to Moscow, Joseph E. Davies,noted:

“I said that frankly, as I had listened to him inveigh so violently against thethreat of Soviet domination and the spread of Communism in Europe, anddisclose such a lack of confidence in the professions of good faith in Sovietleadership, I had wondered whether he, the Prime Minister, was now willing todeclare to the world that he and Britain had made a mistake in not supportingHitler, for as I understood him, he was now expressing the doctrine which Hitlerand Goebbels had been proclaiming and reiterating for the past four years....

Exactly the same conditions which he described and the same deductionswere drawn from them as he now appeared to assert.” 83)

When even well-known politicians degenerate to such extremes in their opinionsand actions in the course of a few years, after previously having espoused andpushed through such goals, now still continue against every better judgment todogmatize the slandering and defamations against their former adversary, thenone cannot expect from them or their like-minded associates that they would assessthe present situation correctly, that they would have drawn lessons from recenthistory or, indeed, have the requisite intellectual magnitude and moral qualificationsessential for responsible politics!

Unfortunately, it was only after 1945 that British politicians understoodcorrectly what was at the bottom of Churchill’s agitating and put it into these pithywords:

The Manchester Guardian:

“People may suspect that when politicians spend their time trying to createpanic it is because their own case is too weak to stand on reason.” 84)

81) W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. V, book II, ‘Teheran to Rome’, p. 320.82) C. Reece, Das Recht auf Deutschlands Osten, p. 29: declaration of the Polish Ambassador to

Washington, Jan Ciechanowski, 6 July 1945.83) Foreign Relations of the United States.– The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference),

vol. I, p. 73.84) E. Hughes, op. cit., p. 258.


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Aneurin Bevan:

“He [Churchill] is known as a very great stylist and one who reads his prosewith delight.

A reason why he moves gracefully across the pages is because he carries alightweight of fact.

He sub-edits history and if there is any disagreeable fact, overboard it goes.This has always been characteristic of the right hon. Gentleman …” 85)

Churchill himself:

“This keeping alive of hatred is one of the worst injuries that can be done tothe peace of the world, and any popularity gained thereby is a shame to the Memberto attempt to gather it.” 86)

It is highly unlikely that Churchill would have reached this understanding onlylater on in his life. Surely not even then would he have drawn any comparisonwith his own actions during the past decades, when the Second World War was, toa large extent, instigated, nurtured and brutally conducted because of his songs ofhate.

85) ibid., p. 268.86) ibid., p. 321.


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Vienna, Munich, Prague - Three Stages

Three events that were to be the three stages leading to the Second World War:1. The union of Austria with the German Reich,2. the Munich conference at the end of September 1938,3. Hitler’s entry into Prague on 15 March 1939.All three events need to be objectively evaluated for their actual significance

and placed in their right position in the wider context.

The Anschluss – Austrian union with the Reich

The Austrian population is German, thinks, feels and speaks German. Viennahad been the German Reich’s capital for half a millennium, nearly ten times aslong as Berlin. Only from 1806 to 1815 and from 1866 to 1938 had Austria duringthe course of her history not been in either a national or a federal union with therest of Germany. On 12 November 1918 the Austrian National Assembly decidedunanimously on union with the German Reich. The new State was called by theNational Assembly in 1918 “German-Austria” (Deutsch-Österreich).

At Versailles the victors had denied the Austrian people their right to self-determination. The union, or rather the reunification, with Germany was forbidden,likewise the name “Deutsch-Österreich”. The Chancellor Karl Renner, a SocialDemocrat, declared at a session of the National Assembly in Vienna on 6 September1919:

“Deutsch-Österreich shall never abandon her objective of attaining, throughpeaceful political means, reunification with the German Reich.” 1)

On 4 October 1922, Renner claimed in view of the credits as guaranteed toAustria by the League of Nations (Economic and Financial Section) “union(Anschluss) with the State to which in the nature of things we belong as the onlysolution”.2) Plebiscites were held in 1920-1921 in the regions of Carinthia, Tyrol,Salzburg and Steiermark, with 99% of the vote in favour of union with Germany.The plebiscites that ought to have taken place in the rest of the country wereforbidden by France. As in this way Austria’s desire for reunification could be

1) Deutsche Verfassungen, Von Frankfurt nach Bonn , p. 622) K. Ploetz, Auszug aus der Geschichte, p. 751.


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demonstrated, so the will of the German Reich was given an equally clearexpression: Article 61, paragraph 2, of the Weimar Constitution dealt with theunion of German Austria with the German Reich. It was kept as a formal componentin the Weimar Constitution to bear witness to the high ideal of further nationaldevelopment, despite the fact that as a result of the Versailles victors’ veto theimplementation of paragraph 2 was to be held in abeyance.

Also in the following years France forbade (in the age of European integra-tion!), partly by applying economic pressure, every attempt at commercialrapprochement of Austria to Germany: specifically, the planned Customs Unionin 1931.

As the Versailles Powers had in this fashion violated the will of the Austrianpeople, who had to suffer crises and unrest, the dangers of civil war, social andeconomic hardships, even the banning of all political parties with the exception ofthe “National Patriotic Front” (Vaterländische Front) and had to live under adictatorship with emergency laws, so it ill behoved them that they should yearslater be justifying once more their renewed interference into Austrian-Germanmatters with the excuse of the “preservation of democracy” in Austria. Because,since the Dollfuss government at the beginning of March 1933 in a coup d’étathad revoked the Constitution and put the country again under dictatorial rule –likewise his successor Dr. Schuschnigg – Austria was no longer a “peaceful anddemocratic” state. The country had endured two bloody revolutions; full internmentcamps (as in Poland) – so-called transit camps (Anhaltelager) – went hand inhand with the dictatorship in power. A not insignificant part of this populationenduring real economic, moral and spiritual suffering – not only supporters ofNational Socialism! – was radically opposed to the government! There had notbeen any free elections from 1932 to 1938.

Without going into all the details of Austria’s history since 1919, it has to besaid that basically the “internal pressures on the Schuschnigg government in 1935and early 1936 were becoming more and more noticeable.” 3) The “internalpressure” was the result of several occurrences: some of it was party political, itwas partly the economic situation in the country, partly because of the isolation inforeign affairs, but it was also in part due to the fact that in Germany there was agrowing prosperity, a falling off in unemployment, an increase in industrialproduction and the foreign policy appeal to unification in Germany highlightedmore impressively than ever before the contrast of chronic misery in Austria.

As to the situation in foreign politics: Great Britain had little interest inbolstering a country that had stood behind Italy during the Abyssinian war of

3) H. Andics, Der Staat den keiner wollte, pp. 504 - 505.


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1935-1936. The Popular Front in France could find no ideological ties with aCatholic, authoritarian system but was, nevertheless, mindful of her Versaillesrole of watchdog and co-determiner of Austria’s affairs.

Conversely, the Austrian people were aware that France had done everythingto obstruct their Anschluss to the Reich and to prolong their economic misery.The Czechs, Slovaks, Rumanians, Slovenes, Serbs and Croats, however, had notshed the monarchical grip of Austria-Hungary only to afterwards enter into afriendly alliance with Vienna.

“Everything taking place in the thirties is as such only the logical developmentof Versailles and St Germain. The breaking-up of the Danube Monarchy hasturned Europe east of the Rhine into a bedlam of contradictory interests, and inthe end it was the weakest that was effected by the repercussions worst of all:Austria. Only the rivalries among the big powers have prevented the collapse ofthe artificial system up to now and have thus kept Austria alive.

Austria, being pushed hither and thither, being used as buffer, by herself shecan do nothing. Her only support is Italy. This backing falls, when Mussolinidecides on an attack against Abyssinia. Instead of doing battle with Hitler, itnow becomes unavoidable that an attempt has to be made to reach an agreementwith Hitler that would keep Austria going.

The channel for this endeavour will be Schuschnigg – for four years hegrapples with the solution of a problem that is simply insoluble, because thenationalistic principle is ideologically irreconcilable with the existence of asecond German state and because it is Hitler in whose hands lies the real powerfor putting his ideology into practice.” 3)

When finally Hitler and Schuschnigg signed an agreement on 11 July 1936,which provided parity of interests between Austria and the German Reich, whichintended the abandoning of meddling in the internal affairs of the neighbour, whichplanned for the recognition of the independence and a stimulation of the economicand cultural exchanges between the two countries, the weight shifting, nonetheless,of the internal and external politics, already apparent before the signing, wascontinuing in increasing measure to the disadvantage of the Austrian government.

“It was agreed to lift the ban on certain newspapers....A deluge of National Socialist propaganda is showered upon Austria from

11 July 1936, onwards, all quite legitimate and within the framework of thetreaty. What does it matter if the Austrian newspapers authorized for sale inGermany, obedient and faithful to their government, sing the praises of theAustrian citizen? The Germans do not read these newspapers and, in any case,it is not they who are asking to be united with Austria. The 1,000-mark embargo


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is lifted and the intolerable dwindling of tourism is slackening somewhat, butinstead every German tourist coming here is an intentional or unintentionalpropaganda campaigner. Swastika flags on automobiles or on knapsacks –German nationals are naturally allowed to exhibit the Swastika flag…

…but they are arriving here as both voluntary or involuntary living proof,demonstrating the rebuilding work of National Socialism ...

They constitute a permanent form of unification propaganda for the Austrians,who day by day experience the effects of economic crisis, the barely reducedunemployment figures, political insecurity on the national level and generaldiscontent of a large section of the population with an authoritarian regime...

But, that the 15,583 prisoners, for example, released on 1 January 1937,would still be fanatical National Socialist, obviously seems to have beenforgotten.” 4)

Something else to be considered:

“Three points of this [July 1936] treaty were published – recognition ofAustrian sovereignty by Germany, mutual non-interference in internal affairsand the conclusion that Austria’s foreign policy is based on the fact that Austriaconsiders herself to be a German state. But much more important were theunpublished addenda. These concerned calling off their mutual press-war – whichin the main was only respected by Germany – amnesty for the numerous politicalprisoners in Austria and other matters. However, a determining factor in theaddenda was that Austria had agreed to assign some part of the government’sresponsibility to the ‘National Opposition’. That ‘National Opposition’ beingnow, after Hitler’s coming to power in Germany, of course, the Austrian NationalSocialists. Furthermore, it was agreed that at a given time – no date was fixed asyet – a plebiscite should be held on the question of union of Austria with theReich. Hitler took this treaty absolutely seriously. He was convinced that, alongwith the unpublished addenda, it would eventually lead to the formation of agovernment of ‘national unity’ as he termed it. He also firmly believed that thevote in the prospective plebiscite would be at least 70% in favour of unificationof the two states.

But it is clear now, a year and a half after the signing of the treaty, the Austriangovernment had interpreted the treaty altogether differently from Hitler. For thegovernment in Vienna, the emphasis was placed on the acknowledged nationalsovereignty and the mutual non-interference in internal affairs, but not on theparticipation of the ‘National Opposition’ in government matters and still lesson the future holding of a plebiscite for unification with Germany, which mostlikely would have meant the end of the Austrian government.” 5)

4) ibid., pp. 530-532.5) K. Zentner, Illustrierte Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges, p. 33.


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These are, in fact, some of the reasons that had induced Chancellor Schuschnigg,in December 1937, to suggest a personal discussion with Hitler, who acceptedthis idea, transmitted to him via his Ambassador in Vienna, Franz von Papen, andin February 1938 invited Dr. Schuschnigg to Berchtesgaden.6) The AustrianChancellor started on his journey after having first informed Mussolini and theBritish and French Ambassadors of his intention and having in turn received theirconsent.7) During his meeting with Dr. Schuschnigg, Hitler did not request theannexation of Austria to the German Reich, but merely stressed the importance ofa German awareness in peaceable domestic politics combined with an economicallysensible policy in Austria. He did not even insist that the NSDAP be permittedagain in Austria. He did, on the other hand, ask Schuschnigg not to drive theAustrian National Socialists underground by means of forcible exclusion fromthe Unity Party (Einheitspar-tei), the “Patriotic Front”. While Hitler may have“exerted pressure” on the Austrian Chancellor during the meeting, and while hemay also have conferred with some of his generals during a recess, this does not,however, entitle any third party to assume the role of moralizer or judge regardingthe manner as to how two statesmen have to reach an agreement and what practicesduring negotiations may or may not be permitted. Hitler was by far the strongerand the more competent in these talks with Dr. Schuschnigg, and this wouldnaturally be reflected in the result of the negotiations – with or without any“pressure”.

“Untenable is Schuschnigg’s assertion that he would have been confrontedwith an entirely new situation at the Berghof. Already from the Göring letters hewould have been aware of Hitler’s demands, and when a comparison is drawnbetween his preliminary treaty (domestic policies proposed in view ofharmonizing German and Austrian interests) and Hitler’s programme, then itwill be shown how minor the differences actually are....

A comparison of the concluded treaty with the preliminary one shows thatonly in the question of the replacement of the Minister of the Interior and Policea large concession would have been made, one that went beyond whatSchuschnigg had himself foreseen.” 8)

Franz von Papen confirmed that the conference was concluded to everyone’ssatisfaction and, in a report written two days after the meeting, that

6) F. von Papen, Der Wahrheit eine Gasse, p. 460.7) ibid., p. 463.8) ibid., pp. 466, 476.

“Schuschnigg, deeply impressed, engaged in a sharp contest yesterday and


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today with all the opponents of pacification, since he is determined to carry outhis Berchtesgaden pledge.” 9)

In answer to a question from his Chief of police, Skubl, as to what impressionHitler had made on him, Schuschnigg said:

“I must say he has something of a far-seeing prophet about him.” 10)

“At Berchtesgaden, Schuschnigg did not yet commit himself definitely, butstated that he would consider himself bound by the agreement only after threedays, for he had first to discuss it with his government.” 11)

On 15 February 1938, the Austrian government notified Hitler that the termsof Berchtesgaden had been accepted and on 18 February, that the political clauseshad already been enforced.12) Hitler, too, kept to the agreement, and he withdrewthe Party leader, Leopold, from Austria so as to make it impossible for the NSDAPin Austria to be legally active.

“The Austrian affair was under weigh [underway]. It had not been launchedby Hitler. It was sprung on him by surprise, and he took a chance, as always.There was no planned aggression, only hasty improvisation...

The following day Hitler kept his part of the bargain: Leopold, the leader ofthe Nazi underground in Austria, was summoned before Hitler; told that hisactivities had been ‘insane’; and ordered to leave Austria along with his principalassociates. A few days later Hitler saw these Nazis again, gave them anotherrating, and insisted that ‘the evolutionary course be taken, whether or not thepossibility of success could today be foreseen. The Protocol signed bySchuschnigg was so far-reaching that, if completely carried out, the Austrianproblem would be automatically solved’.

Hitler was satisfied. He made no preparations for action, but waitedimpassively for the automatic solution to mature.” 13)

The Austrian Chancellor conducted “a resolute campaign to play down theFebruary crisis…”,14) informing his envoys abroad that the Berchtesgadenconference had been concluded satisfactorily and telling them to rebuff any foreigncriticism of alleged appeasement.

9) ADAP (Akten der deutschen auswärtigen Politik), vol. I, doc. 297.10) Schmidt-Prozeß, p. 329.11) H. Sündermann, Das Dritte Reich, p. 132.12) A. v. Ribbentrop, Verschwörung gegen den Frieden, p. 154.13) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, pp. 142-144.14) G. Brook-Shepherd, The Anschluss, p.83.


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“The initial propaganda line of the ‘Fatherland Front’ had actually gone sofar as to portray Berchtesgaden as an ‘unqualified personal success’ forSchuschnigg.” 15)

Even Eden, the antagonistic opponent of an appeasement policy, who hadresigned his post as Foreign Minister on 20 February 1938 in protest against thetoo lenient course taken by the British government with regard to the Italian andAustrian question, was still stating on 17 and 18 February in the House of Commons“that no approach for advice or support had come to London from Vienna, eitherbefore the Berchtesgaden meeting, or after it.” 16)

“According to information in my possession, Austria has succeeded atBerchtesgaden in clarifying her relations with the German Reich in what wemay hope is a favourable and durable fashion, through direct and detailed talksbetween the two heads of Government without the slightest disturbance.” 16)

On 14 February, the London Times commented that:

“... there is no need to quarrel with an agreement with which the Führer, theDuce and Herr von Schuschnigg are all apparently content.” 17)

and added a few days later in a follow-up editorial:

“ Fundamentally, a close understanding between the two German States isthe most natural thing possible. One of the least rational, most brittle and mostprovocative artificialities of the peace settlement was the ban on the incorporationof Austria in the Reich... These crows are coming home to roost.

Austria can never be anti-Germanic. Ultimately this is the real strength ofthe Reich claims upon it and the real difficulty of an Austrian Chancellor whenhe has to defend and define Austrian independence.” 17)

Hitler had announced his intention to address the Reichstag on 20 February1938, and had assured Schuschnigg, at his departure from the Berghof, that in thisspeech he would “mention the meeting with some favourable comment”.18) Forthe first time, a speech by Hitler was broadcast on Austrian radio.19) Apart fromother matters Hitler declared:

15) ibid., p.72.16) ibid., pp. 90-91.17) ibid., pp. 84-85.18) ibid., p. 97.19) K. v. Schuschnigg, Ein Requiem in Rot-Weiß-Rot, p. 56.


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“In conjunction with this [relaxation of the strain in our relations with oneanother] there should be a practical contribution towards peace by granting ageneral amnesty, and by creating a better understanding between the two Statesthrough a still closer friendly co-operation in as many different fields as possible– political, personal, and economic – all complementary to and within theframework of the Agreement of July 11 [1936].

I express in this connection before the German people my sincere thanks tothe Austrian Chancellor for his great understanding and the warm-heartedwillingness with which he accepted my invitation and worked with me, so thatwe might discover a way of serving the best interests of the two countries; for,after all, it is the interest of the whole German people, whose sons we all are,wherever we may have been born.” 20)

On 24 February, that is only a few days later, Chancellor Schuschnigg replied,also in a radio broadcast, with a speech to the ‘parliament’ that no one had elected:

“Austria did reach with the concessions at Berchtesgaden, so he said, ‘thoselimits where we have to order a stop and must say: This far and no further!’ Asif consciously trying to provoke Hitler, he declared that Austria was never goingto relinquish her independence. His speech ended with these words: ‘Red-White-Red to the death!’” 21)

Once again the Austrian question was moved centre-stage in the Europeandiscussions.22) In the meantime, Schuschnigg had been put under heavy pressureby London to cancel his agreement with the German Reich.23) In particular, hewas pressured by a personal friend, French Ambassador Gabriel Puaux,24) butother diplomats also harassed him (“The only one that kept quiet and was nowhereto be seen was the German Ambassador, Herr von Papen.” 25)) to admit that hehad been blackmailed by Hitler.

“ From whence did this knowledge come?It was said that the Intelligence Service on the spot was extremely well

informed. The attempts at toning down, undertaken by Dr Schmidt – by nowForeign Minister – and myself to prevent any melodramatic reporting, were notreadily believed.” 26)

20) G. Rühle, Das Dritte Reich, vol. 1938, p. 60.21) K. Zentner, op. cit., p. 40.22) ADAP, vol. I, doc. 327.23) Europäische Politik 1933-1938 im Spiegel der Prager Akten, p. 101.24) K. Zentner, op. cit., p. 41.25) K.v. Schuschnigg, op. cit., p. 35.26) ibid., p. 30 – In reality, England learned only “several days later” of the events of 12 February1938

in Berchtesgaden: see I. Colvin, Vansittart in 0ffice, pp. 184-185.


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“The economic barometer was to react very quickly: fearful runs on thebanks and building societies, cancellations of credits by foreign firms.

Postal work increased to thousands of telegrams and letters. Alarm signals,especially from Styria.... The negative forecasts outnumbered the optimisticones...

Day after day the banks and building societies reported the withdrawal ofmillions of Schillings. There were notifications of cancellations, especially fromoverseas. Foreigners were leaving the country....

Inevitably, this resulted in a situation that became politically untenable, bothat home and abroad.

Foreign relations were affected, above all on the economic level, because ofa looming threat that presented all the disadvantages of the Anschluss, inparticular foreign boycott from abroad, without the advantages of an extensive,unified economic area.” 27)

But the foreign pressures on the Austrian government had still graverconsequences.

The British, French and American newspapers that could be bought in Viennaannounced to the Austrian people “the first act of their tragedy”:

“The result was a mood of panic and disillusionment that no ‘FatherlandFront’ propaganda could dispel. …the new government immediately came underfire from no less a quarter than the Papal Nuncio in Vienna, and talk of theChancellor’s resignation cropped up within 48 hours of his return to office.” 28)

The French Envoy in Vienna, Puaux, officially informed Schuschnigg thatFrance “regarded the independence of Austria as indispensable to the peace andstability of Europe”.29)

“In fact, something much more substantial was being debated at the time inParis.” 29)

It was nothing less than the attempt by France “to organize joint action withLondon on Austria’s behalf”.29) Austria’s press Attaché in Paris, Dr. Fuchs,apparently succumbing to this situation, even refused to publish the officialappeasement reports arriving from Vienna, so that he had to be threatened withremoval from office.29) Similarly influenced and also reacting awkwardly towardshis government was the Austrian Envoy in Paris, Vollgruber. But, he had already

27) K.v. Schuschnigg, op. cit., pp. 59-60, 110-111.28) G. Brook-Shepherd, op. cit., pp. 72-73.29) ibid., pp. 81-84.


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been worked on by the Secretary General of the French Foreign Ministry andcensured by a criticism that “could [not] have been made more searching”.29)

“…on the very day that Léger’s warning reached Vienna, Schuschnigg tookthe decision to scrap his entire policy of appeasement, and challenge Hitlerbefore the world with his famous plebiscite.” 29)

What was the reaction in England? While the British papers at the time of theBerchtesgaden conference (12 February) and shortly after regarding the German-Austrian agreement were quite restrained, if not agreeable, so a few days later(beginning on 16 February)

“the Austrian Government’s campaign of deception was swept awayovernight. …The Daily Express spoke of the ‘outright ultimatum’ with whichAustria had been presented, while the Daily Mail warned of the dangers facingCzechoslovakia if Hitler should succeed in his aim of ‘amalgamating’ Austriaand Germany.” 30)

Other newspapers followed with cutting editorials. The Times, as alreadyquoted, remained an exception. However, “the Socialist Opposition to HerMajesty’s government now tried to make a major issue out of British policy towardsAustria”31) and so induce London to act. “During those same 48 hours” this initiativealso spread to numerous supporters of the government.31) In a closed session ofthe Commons’ Foreign Affairs Committee some rather harsh words wereexchanged. The indignation voiced ranged from appeals “to face the fact thatadventurism is now in the ascendant in Nazi Germany and that the cautious peoplehave been proved wrong” to Winston Churchill’s declaration that “it was timenow to call a halt”.31)

“… a majority of the hundred…were prepared to take up the cudgels againstHitler then and there, if given the slightest encouragement. The statement [jointlyissued by them] made a blunt appeal, ‘in the light of recent events’, for ‘a morepositive attitude by this country in Europe’. The Foreign Affairs Committee, itadded, was anxious that ‘the Government should remain in no doubt of thefuture support of the Party in such an eventuality’.

… This invitation to action was addressed to the Prime Minister of Britainby one of his principal Parliamentary Committees. It applied just as well to theChancellor of Austria.” 31)

30) ibid., pp. 84-85.31) ibid., pp. 87-88.


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Although Chamberlain was willing to tone down this kind of language, heonly partly succeeded. How strong was the pressure he was put under by Parliamentand the parties, but also by members of the government, was made evident by thefact that his Foreign Minister Eden, together with Under-Secretary of State, LordCranborne, “resigned in protest against their Prime Minister’s ‘soft’ policy towardsthe Axis”.32)

To this diverse pressure from London and Paris, after the “most disturbingdebates in the Chamber of Deputies” and the warnings sent to Vienna, to thepressure of a world press that was getting worked up, to an economic boycott andto the political events at home, Schuschnigg had to respond one way or another.33)

He did an about-turn and indeed covertly announced a future opposing ofGermany.34)

It has to be stressed that to this day none of the propagandists has regarded this‘diverse pressure’, these ‘methods of violating small nations’ as ‘illegitimatepolitical means’, nor indeed has even drawn effective attention to this game ofintrigue! Even if later on in his memoirs Schuschnigg would mention only in passingthese foreign demonstrations while emphasizing, on the other hand, the internalpolitical complications, so it is historically indisputable, however, that the AustrianChancellor had originally not intended a course change and only altered courseunder the influence from abroad. In the end, this reversal was done in the beliefthat the Western Powers would safeguard militarily the independence of his regime.

“For this reason I decided on a plebiscite ... It was the last straw when it wasevident that it was more and more difficult to parry the unrest among the workers.If the Swastika as an ethos symbol is allowed, why not then the ‘Three Arrows’of the Socialists and dozens of other emblems? There was the fear that a hopelessmess could develop that would not have been prevented without bloody clashes.This was to be avoided at all costs. I have consistently turned down everythingthat could call the slightest attention to the National Front. I wanted no politicalparties; this was the only way at the time to prevent the NSDAP. ...

The Berchtesgaden Agreement was carried out to the letter:General Situation:(a) Police and the Executive (in Austria: forces of law and order) powerless;

since the 12 February, the day of Berchtesgaden, no political sentencing hadtaken place; all political prisoners, also violent criminals, murderers and perjurersof the Executive are pardoned. This would have to produce a correspondingeffect.

32) ibid., p. 93.33) ibid., pp. 103-104.34) H. Sündermann, op. cit., pp. 133-136.


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(b) Parts of the Civil Service, the government administration and the financeand school administration… were openly refusing obedience and were appealingto Minister Seyss and the political department of the National Front that I hadestablished at the time.

(c) Minister Seyss promised order without enforcing it.(d) Economic concern, demonstrations and an unstable situation:The defencelessness of the Patriotic Front, whose loyal members and

followers of the government could no longer be heard; and because of that, theywere becoming increasingly discouraged.” 35)

When Dr. Schuschnigg had announced at a moment’s notice on 9 March 1938his referendum for the 13 March 1938 – keeping it deliberately vague, with a nodto separatism, impossible to conduct properly because of insufficient preparationsand even being unconstitutional 36) – at which he called

“For a free and German, independent and Socialist, for a Christian andunited Austria! For peace and jobs and equal rights for all who declarethemselves for the people and the Fatherland!”

he had destroyed, without a doubt, the spirit and the essence of the agreementwith Hitler and thus had brought the situation in the land to a head. There werealready 40,000 Austrian refugees in the Reich.37)

“The date for the ballot is fixed for the following Sunday, the 13 March. Acountry which for the past five years has been governed by an authoritarianregime, where there have been no democratic elections for the past six years,where neither electoral registers nor any democratic parties are in existence,is now expected to carry out within a few days’ time an election which isclaimed to be accepted by the world at large as an irrefutable, lawful andunquestionable declaration. The government is going to the country afterpractically excluding the people from all political activity for four years. Theidea is sheer madness.”38)

After the signing of the Berchtesgaden agreement, Dr. Schuschnigg could haveresigned in favour of President Miklas and requested that he revoke it. That atleast would have shown a clear sense of direction, even though it would havecontradicted Dr. Schuschnigg’s own statement that he was not an opponent of

35) K. v. Schuschnigg, op. cit. (German edition), pp. 111-112.36) According to the Austrian constitution a plebiscite could be implemented only by a parliamentary

resolution and the approval of the President. Schuschnigg disregarded this provision.37) P. Kleist, Auch Du warst dabei, p. 201.38) H. Andics, op. cit., p. 550.


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unification. The procedure adopted by Schuschnigg and the refusal to hold agenuine referendum three or four weeks later, as was demanded subsequently byHitler on the 10 March, would now have in its wake the well known chain-reactionsthat were to realize Austria’s Anschluss to the Reich.

After the conduct of Dr. Schuschnigg, “he [Hitler] must either act or behumiliated ...”

“The crisis of March 1938 was provoked by Schuschnigg, not by Hitler.There had been no German preparations, military or diplomatic. Everythingwas improvised in a couple of days.” 39)

“It was still believed in Berlin throughout the day of the 10 of March that bychanging the date and the text of the referendum, a solution had been found thatmade it still possible to continue the Berchtesgaden policy with Schuschnigg.Alone the consideration for Mussolini made Hitler keep to his previousprogramme with the tenacity of which he was capable in such situations....

From the diary of the future General Jodl, we know that only on 11 March1938, midday at 1.00 p.m., did Hitler sign the military document known by thecodename ‘Operation Otto’, which ordered a deployment of troops in the eventof an intervention in Austria.” 40)

General von Manstein had to unexpectedly draw up on the 10 March a plan ofoperation of the type not requiring a mobilization and not requiring anypreparations.41) Schuschnigg’s refusal to acknowledge the clearly becoming evidentrevolt in Austria against a referendum which could not be carried out lawfully(not even his Cabinet did he inform of his solitary decision, let alone asking themfor advice!),42) his rejection of a postponement, justifiably gave Hitler licence, atthe latest from the 10 March onwards, to accuse Schuschnigg of having violatedthe Berchtesgaden treaty and thus having provoked Hitler.

On 11 March, Schuschnigg ordered the cancellation of the referendum,accompanying the decision with extraordinary security measures and a curfewafter 8.00 p.m. The annulment of the referendum was to give the impression – andwas obviously designed to produce this effect! – to demonstrate principally toFrance, Britain and the USA that Austria’s yielding was due to an “act of violence”on the part the Reich government. Being familiar with the diplomaticcorrespondence of the preceding days and weeks, Schuschnigg was fully aware,

39) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit.,, pp. 146, 149.40) H. Sündermann, op. cit., p. 152, and Schmidt-Prozeß, p. 578.41) K. Zentner, op. cit., p. 42.42) ibid., p. 41.


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after all, that the Western Powers, France especially, would only come to Austria’sdefence – but in that event with all military might –

“if it were a clear case of violation, that is, if the Austrian governmentconsiders that her rights have been violated.” 43)

The “bomb” – as Mussolini described the rushed plebiscite – really did explode“in the hands of Schuschnigg”.44) The civil war which had been contemplated byDr. Schuschnigg shortly before his resignation did not take place.45)

When on 11 March Hitler had given to his troops the order to march intoAustria, he did not have, as yet, a clear picture with respect to the futureconstitutional development of his homeland.46) He could neither have predictedwith any certainty (apart from the occupation of the Rhineland 1936) a “War ofFlowers” which now happened for the first time in human history, nor could hehave anticipated the reaction abroad. The opinion of the British Ambassador inBerlin, Henderson, was already known to him, since he – perhaps by order orwith the approval of his government –

“made no secret of his desire to see Germany and Austria united in onestate.” 47)

In the end it was the foreign press that was putting Austria’s Anschluss onHitler’s lips. At the same time, the yielding of Britain and France together with thedemonstration of friendship from Italy was made evident. These three factorscombined finally persuaded him to carry through the reunification of Austria withGermany.

“The rejoicing crowds greeting Hitler on his entry into Vienna are notmentioned in Austria’s teaching Curriculum. The Anschluss, which at the timehad the approval of almost all the powers of the completely run-down State,from the Socialist Renner to Cardinal Innitzer, is today regarded simply asmilitary occupation.” 48)

43) H. Sündermann, op. cit., pp. 150-154 and Schmidt-Prozeß, p. 573.44) A. v. Ribbentrop, op. cit., p. 159.45) ibid., p. 166.46) H. Guderian, Erinnerungen eines Soldaten, pp. 42-49.47) C. Bewley, Hermann Göring, p. 175.48) Der Spiegel, N° 47/1962, p. 112.


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The union of Austria with the Reich was neither a question of annexation inthe usual sense of linguistic usage nor a highway campaign of robbery, nor was itthe enslaving of a free people, nor the elimination of a “democratic” system ofgovernment, but rather it was the realization of the longings and of the rights ofthe Austrian people, in existence and nurtured long before Hitler. Furthermore,when examined in the context of international law it was a lawful action accordingto the principle of the national right of self-determination.

“Let us suppose that Hitler had bound himself by his first promise – tomaintain Austrian independence. What would have resulted? The internal feudswould assuredly have gone on and burst into such increasing conflagration thatmuch misery and bloodshed would have followed, with only one end to it all –the Nazi element would have won the day and brought about the “Anschluss”themselves. Hitler’s action saved all that distress. He saw what was the onlycure and the inevitable destiny of Austria and acted accordingly. The otherpowers, looking on, might inveigh against his infringement of another state’ssovereignty and his virtual annexation of her territory, but they would hardlypretend, in face of facts, that he had quelled an unwilling Austria by force ofarms, or had done anything but bring unity and order to the ancient heart ofEurope.” 49)

“...The reunification with Germany had long been a matter near to the heartof the Austrians. Austria would already have been part of the German Reich ifthe victorious nations had not simply prohibited it after the First World War.And this in spite of the fact that the National Assembly in November 1918already had unanimously accepted the resolution, made in accordance with thewill of the people, stating:

‘German-Austria is a part of the German Republic’.Until Hitler took power in 1933, the Social-Democrats were the most eager

supporters of union. But union with the Germany of Hitler – that was somethingelse.” 50)

Munich

The conference held in Munich on 29 September 1938, at which Chamberlainfor Britain, Daladier for France, Mussolini for Italy and Hitler had set down theprocedure for the transfer of the Sudetenland to Germany, was the consequence ofthe Versailles politics that could have no long-lasting existence:

49) P.H. Nicoll, Britain’s Blunder, pp. 12-13.50) K. Zentner, op. cit., p. 40.


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1) In 1938, Czecho-Slovakia’s population was 15 million. Of these, there were over 7 million Czechs 3.5 “ Germans 2.5 “ Slovakians 0.76 “ Hungarians 0.50 “ Carpatho-Ukrainians 0.11 “ Polish2) H. Roos, Polen und Europa – Studien zur polnischen Außenpolitik 1931-1939, p. 281.3) W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. I, book I, ‘The Gathering Storm’, pp. 237, 263.

1. because no state is viable which, to a large extent, comprises ethnicminorities, and which discriminates and terrorizes these minorities with all itsstate-approved means;1)

2. because in such a State, where the leadership speaks of “democracy”,“equality”, “autonomy” and the “will to mutual understanding”, but practices theexact opposite, there can be no thought of reconciliation in the field of domesticaffairs;

3. because the majority in the State – the Czechs – failed to gain the friendshipof a single one of the minority groups nor of any of the neighbouring countries; infact, these minorities (principally the Slovaks) and neighbouring Poland andHungary were even working, on their own initiative, towards the destruction ofthe Czech State during the crucial year of 1938;2)

4. because the creation of a state for purely strategic reasons as was done bythe victorious World Powers3) was bound to founder, as soon as decisive strategicweights would shift in the course of time. Thus, in 1938 the following strategicaspects changed in comparison with 1919:

a) From a military standpoint, Germany had to be taken seriously again in1938, while France was weakened in her internal affairs.

b) The Anschluss of Austria led to an almost complete geographical en-circlement of Czecho-Slovakia and opened up a border for Germany which wasnot fortified on the Czech side.

c) The German West Wall (Siegfried Line), under construction since 1936,hastily accelerated after the May 1938 crisis that had been provoked by Benes,was nearing completion in September 1938 and, therefore, would frustrate anyprompt assistance from France to be given to the Prague government.

d) The strategic importance of Czecho-Slovakia to France and Britain wasdependent upon whether approximately 40 German divisions in the area ofBohemia-Moravia could be pinned down until the French army could make asuccessful breakthrough across the Rhine. The Anschluss, the Siegfried Line, thesuperiority of the German air force over the Czech air force and the secureleadership situation in Germany nullified these requirements.

e) The Prague government has produced during its 20-year rule such an


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4) F.O. Miksche, Unconditional Surrender, p. 204.5) G. Bonnet, Défense de la Paix. De Washington au Quai d’Orsay, p. 202 (German ed., Vor der

Katastrophe, pp. 69-70).6) ibid., p. 140.7) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 153.8) W. Jaksch, Europas Weg nach Potsdam, pp. 332, 333 (English ed., p. 326).

aggravated domestic situation that the soldiers – from the ethnic minorities – couldno longer be considered as reliable.4)

f) Great Britain, 1918 joint victor with France, more or less withdrew after theFirst World War, concentrating on her Empire, and was in 1938 not prepared toget drawn into a European war by Czecho-Slovakia; especially since it was perfectlyplain for the British politicians that Stalin would exploit such a conflict for theimplementation of Bolshevist world revolutionary interests.

g) France was not able in 1938 to rally any support for Czecho-Slovakia fromEastern Europe, since none of these countries was willing – and they made thisvery clear to Paris! – to lift a finger for the Prague government. These countriescategorically refused to give any concession for Soviet troops to be passing throughtheir territories. Poland and Rumania especially feared “that the secret intentionbehind Russia’s request was to recapture Bessarabia without a fight”.5) Poland,incidentally, was making demands herself on Czecho-Slovakia. Furthermore,Poland was also no longer in tune with France, not having got over the French-Soviet Mutual Assistance Pact of 1935/36.

“The adjoining countries were hostile or indifferent towards Czecho-Slovakia. Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia openly declared their hostilitytowards the Prague government. Rumania refused to allow Russian troops topass through her territory. Thus the conditions set forth by Russia for herintervention [in favour of Czecho-Slovakia] were not fulfilled.” 6)

h) The military and political allies of Czecho-Slovakia – France and GreatBritain – did an about-turn against their Czech protégé because of the strategicshift in the balance of power in September 1938. With this action, they thwartedE. Benes’ intentions to solve his problems of the internal affairs by means of aEuropean war.7)

The creation of Czecho-Slovakia with her 49.5% minorities that never wantedto co-exist in a state ruled by the Czechs was questionable from the beginning.The British Lord Chancellor, Lord Maugham, was to declare in the Munichconference debate in the House of Lords that this state, for which one had gone tothe brink of war, should never have been set up.8) Viscount Rothermere, directorof the Ministry of Information’s press office at the time, judged similarly:


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“This caricature of a country under its Czech leaders has from the momentof its birth committed almost every conceivable folly.” 9)

The British Foreign Minister, Lord Halifax, also was to inform on 9 September1938 his Ambassador in Paris that one had to consider carefully

“ whether it was worthwhile to make war for something that nobody canmaintain and that nobody seriously wants to restore. ” 10)

A Polish diplomat, Count Grzybowski, personal friend of the Polish ForeignMinister Beck, explained during a private conversation with his French colleagueCoulondre on 26 May 1938, thus months before the Munich conference:

“ Trying to save Czecho-Slovakia is a wild dream. Sooner or later she willcollapse like a house of cards.” 11)

Even Marshal Pilsudski has, ever since 1918, considered Czecho-Slovakia tobe not viable – in the same way as he considered Austria to be not viable. For himthe only question was which of the two states would disappear first.12) The PolishForeign Minister, Colonel Beck, had regarded Czecho-Slovakia, “with whom onecannot engage in politics anyway”, merely as an European disgrace.13) On 25-26May 1938 – months before the Munich conference! – Polish diplomacy was to letthe European governments know, “that Czecho-Slovakia, an arbitrary combinationof words, of several exceptionally mutually hostile minorities, was a countrycondemned to death.” 14)

The foundation of this state whose “name of Czecho-Slovakia soundsoutlandish…to English ears…” 15) and that was afflicted with the burden of enmitytowards Germany,16) was even more dubious, considering that the Czechs wereknown to describe the forcibly integrated minorities as “rebels”, “immigrants”,“settlers” etc. and were treating them as such.17)

“Already at the peace negotiations after the First World War the Czech

9) V. Rothermere, Warnings and Predictions, p. 117.10) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, vol. I, p. 109.11) R. Coulondre, De Staline à Hitler, souvenirs de deux ambassades, 1936-1939, p. 151 (German

ed., p. 219).12) R. Breyer, Das deutsche Reich und Polen 1932-1937, p. 141.13) H. Roos, op. cit., p. 276.14) ibid., p. 324.15) W. Churchill, op. cit., p. 213.16) F. Gause, Deutsch-slawische Schicksalsgemeinschaft, pp. 271, 280.17) E.J. Reichenberger, Wider Willkür und Machtrausch, p. 77.


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‘Memorandum 3’ denied to the Sudeten Germans the right of self-determina-tion, as they were held to be the descendants of immigrants and settlers.”18)

A Czech historian admitted the fact as well:

“The widespread belief that without the capitulation of the Western Powersin Munich, Czecho-Slovakia could hold her own ground is not based uponfacts. This is only one of the many propagandist legends which found theirway into the public mind.” 19)

The antagonism towards German national traditions and culture was continuallyadded to by the – since Versailles 1919 – existing determination of the Czechs intheir drive of inflicting damage to that German entity living alongside the frontierwho had resigned themselves to the newly – and against their will – created order,19)

in a social, economical and cultural way, to spoil their feeling of belonging to thisstate and to force them out of the country.20)

“From the beginning the Czechs considered themselves to be the peoplewho represented the state and did not think it worthwhile to try to give the twomain minorities – German and Slovak – the feeling that the new state was alsotheirs.” 21)

The parliament, constitution and government of Czecho-Slovakia remained inforce without any authorization from the minority groups, and the parliamentaryopposition continued without any influence in spite of election results to thecontrary. Power was in the hands of the same small Czech group centred aroundBenes which “boosted the national egoism of the Czechs beyond measure”,22) inspite of the advertising sign “democracy”. The executives of the Czech parties notonly called the constituent National Assembly, but also nominated the Pétka(National Constitutional Committee, consisting of five members), thus conductinggovernment policy without taking the wishes of the population into account.22)

“The unification of the Germans in Czecho-Slovakia was not only the resultof Hitler’s coming to power in 1933, but was equally as well the consequence

18) Das östliche Deutschland – ein Handbuch, p. 169, and H. Raschhofer, Die tschechoslowak-ischen Denkschriften für die Friedenskonferenz von Paris 1919-1920, p. 95 seq..

19) F.O. Miksche, op. cit., p. 203.20) F. Gause, op. cit., pp. 271, 280.21) H. Mau and H. Krausnick, Deutsche Geschichte der jüngsten Vergangenheit 1933 bis 1945,

p.110.22) B. Celovsky, Das Münchener Abkommen 1938, pp. 104, 105.


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of the conduct displayed by the Czechs in the sphere of internal developmentof the state. Therefore, their efforts to obtain autonomy within the state weregenuine, and the situation in 1938 was self-induced by Czecho-Slovakia whenall German proposals for concord were rejected.” 23)

The culture war of the Czech people was not directed against National Socialismbut rather against German traditions and culture. Therefore, National Socialismcould not have been responsible, especially since this fight for national identitywas already begun in 1919. Many years before Hitler was politically effective theCzech newspapers had adopted the habit – in spite of national censorship – ofcirculating in this thoroughly unfriendly tone:

“The ‘Ceske slovo’ of 29 October 1920 demanded that one ought not togive equal rights to the Germans, but rather ‘have them hanged from gallowsand candelabras’. ‘Zlata Praha’ stated on the occasion of the Sokol festival in1919 that one ought to have the Germans ‘flogged’ across the border.

‘Vonkov’ regretted on 6 January 1926 that the Sudeten Germans had nottaken up arms against the Czechs after the putsch in 1918, as that would havepresented the best opportunity ‘for sorting things out’.

The official state newspaper ‘Cesko-Slovenska’ wrote in October 1921: ‘The German minority in Brünn will melt away like a piece of ice in the

sun and nothing can save them. To be contributing to the acceleration of thisdevelopment is a self-evident duty of the Czech majority’.” 24)

At a military celebration in 1923 in Podersam a Czech speaker stated:

“We Czechs must strive to seize all industry. For as long as the last chimneystack of German factories has not… disappeared, and as long as German assetsare not all in our hands, until then we must fight.” 24)

Up to 1936 there was no change for the better. So wrote the Czech newspaper‘Obrana Naroda’ on 15 April 1936 – another example of the strictly censoredCzech press!

“The borderland problem is not only a social question; the borderlandproblem is the reclaiming of over a third of our Fatherland back into the handsof our nation. The borderland problem is the populating of a third of our countrywith people from our nation, it is the augmentation of the current languagefrontier as far as the actual national borders, it is the construction of a superblypowerful, impregnable and dependable border area, a human strongholdcomprising people of our race and blood.”

23) F. Gause, op. cit., p. 280.24) R. Pozorny, Wir suchten die Freiheit, pp. 92, 180, 179.


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‘Stráz Nroda’ of 13 March 1936:

“The gradual buying up of property in our border areas is the best means ofsecuring Czech positions. The smallest piece of land that passes into Czechhands denotes a strengthening of the Czech element.” 24)

This attitude, which had as a consequence that the Sudetenland under Czechrule had the highest infant mortality and the highest suicide rate in the world, wassurely not an appropriate reaction to the attention that had been given to the Czechpeople in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

“The secret of its well-being lay principally in the circumstance that 65 percent of the industries of the old monarchy – which up to then had been thecommon property of fifty-four millions of people – now remained in the handsof an independent State of only fourteen million.

This is a further striking proof that the Slav nations were not exploited bythe Habsburgs so much as was later pretended.

… the Czechs were the best-paid industrial workers, and the richest peasantswere the Croats, whereas the standard of living in Tyrol, a purely Germanprovince, was always rather low.” 25)

And after the defeat of Germany and Austria?

“In the same breath that democratic-humanistic phrases were beingespoused, more than half a million Czechs were being transplanted to an area,where they had to fulfil but one function: to be outposts for an aggressiveCzech undertaking of huge proportions. In this manner there was forfeited …… 31% of the German territory in a chilly impounding, for which there was nomeans of legal redress and which, therefore, was nothing other than sheerplunder on a large scale, organized by the State and carried out under Stateauthority.

From a political point of view it is utter madness to constantly convey intothe already over-populated German crises areas an ever increasing inflow ofpeople. We declare openly (‘Young Socialist’ Wenzel Jaksch, on 26 April 1936at Bodenbach) that the discrimination against the Germans in the public servicesector, in the language question and the whole of the administration has reacheda point that in general is thought to be intolerable. The national running battleis continuing on all fronts and is polluting the domestic atmosphere.” 26)

Utilizing every public and socio-political opportunity, the Prague government

25) F. O. Miksche, op. cit., pp. 190-191.26) R. Pozorny, op. cit., pp. 163, 208.


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systematically pressed the education policy into the service of national expansion.Consequently, two types of schools were established in the Sudeten Germanterritories:

“… firstly, for the non-Czech ethnic groups alone, but then, however, alsoCzech schools which were not only meant for the children of the transferredCzechs living in the minority areas, but were also intended for the non-Czechchildren. By means of all kinds of social tempting and pressurizing of theirparents, these non-Czech children were starting school there and eventuallywould become estranged from their own traditions and culture.” 27)

Czecho-Slovakia was evaluated and viewed by Britain and France almostexclusively on the basis of a possible military deployment against Germany, notas a free state that might also at some stage have good relations with the Reich orthat might at least be encouraged to adopt a reasonable line of conduct for thesake of peace in Europe. The culture war against the ethnic Germans instigated bythe Czechs and the subsequent “crimes against humanity” were deliberatelyoverlooked in the capitals of Western Europe. In France the political leadershiphad other interests.

In 1919 the French Marshal Foch had already declared, in his capacity asprincipal military advisor at the Versailles peace negotiations:

“You see [looking at a map of Czecho-Slovakia], here is a great bastion.You will not give me permission to extend the frontier to the Rhine, then atleast leave me this bulwark.” 28)

In his memoirs Churchill also admitted this attitude:

“The mere neutralisation of Czecho-Slovakia means the liberation of twenty-five German divisions, which will threaten the Western front; in addition towhich it will open up for the triumphant Nazis the road to the Black Sea. ...

The subjugation of Czecho-Slovakia robbed the Allies…of twenty-oneregular, fifteen or sixteen second-line divisions…” 29)

A historian corroborated that the old Czecho-Slovakia, allied to France andthe Soviet Union, had been “a dagger pointed at Germany’s heart, a hostile

27) K. Rabl, Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Völker, p. 119, and K.E. Freiherr von Türcke, DasSchulrecht der deutschen Volksgruppen in Ost- und Südosteuropa, pp. 537-679.

28) W. Jaksch, op. cit., p. 333 (English ed., p. 326).29) W. Churchill, op. cit., vol. I, book I, ‘The Gathering Storm’, pp. 238, 263.


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stronghold right inside German territory, a gate of entry of the Reichs’ enemies”.30)

She was created for this purpose.When France with the conclusion of the German-Polish non-aggression and

friendship pact in January 1934 “lost 60 Polish divisions”,31) she reinforced herefforts not to lose the forty Czech divisions and the only Central Eastern Europeanwar industry (Czecho-Slovakia had a share of over 8/9). These efforts were reflectedin the endeavour

a) to reassure the Czech government again and again of France’s firm resolveto stand by her contractual obligations to a confederate ally and, therefore, readyto aid her economically and to lend support in foreign and domestic affairs; andalso

b) to urge Prague repeatedly to deter the minorities from obtaining any positionin the government and all influential offices, thereby preserving the alliance valueof the Czech army. The motto for this was,

“to have Henlein in the Czech government would be the equivalent of theGerman military attaché assuming the role of deputy Chief of the Czech’sArmy General Staff.” 32)

Eduard Benes sought revenge in his own way:

“…always supporting French policies and French interests on the Leagueof Nations and elsewhere….

For twenty years President Benes had been the faithful ally and almostvassal of France…” 33)

A Czech historian was to admit:

“It was thought that the Peace of Versailles would be binding on Germanyfor all time, and that could not be. On the other hand, the existence of thenewly formed States depended upon the Treaty. For this reason everyopportunity was taken of fanning the flame of Franco-German animosity andpreventing a rapprochement between Berlin and Paris. In order to maintaintheir status they fought against any attempt to revise the obviously unjust rulingsof the Versailles Treaty.” 34)

Apart from September 1938 France never encouraged her Czech ally to seek

30) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. II, p. 40.31) E. Moravec, Das Ende der Benesch-Repub!ik, p. 213.32) ibid., p. 233.33) W. Churchill, op. cit., p. 237.34) E. O. Miksche, Unconditional Surrender, p. 202.


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reconciliation with Germany, but rather kept insisting for them to “remain tough.”32)

A demand followed all the more eagerly by Benes since he was aware that Germanywould not risk war with his country in the face of such a coalition. As a consequencethe activities against the Reich increased, and an almost explosive heightening ofthe internal situation was developing, exacerbated when the Sudeten GermanHeimatfront (Sudeten-German party) emerged at the May elections of 1935 as thestrongest party of the whole of the Czecho-Slovakian state – but was stillcategorically excluded from the leadership of the state.

But Benes knew how to “justify” this too:

“In a democratic State it was the rights of individuals and not of any groupas such which must be respected and it would be impossible to admit totalitarianor authoritarian claims.” 35)

His Prime Minister Hodza was equally adept in employing this vocabulary.He would not allow communal elections in the Sudetenland “so long as they mightdevelop into markedly violent contests” and also rejected the Sudeten Germanparty’s proposals because

“the constitution [which] did not recognize either a separate legal personalityfor the different sections of the people or a ‘spokesman’ for them.” 36)

The Czech leadership could only hope that when they were presenting these orsimilar utterances to their interlocutors these would be either too stupid or toobiased and overlook the contradictions and hypocrisy of those remarks. How couldthe rights of the individual be protected or be regarded as such when the Stateleadership refuses to take into consideration the rights of the people as a whole? Ithad to be obvious to every foreign observer – as indeed it was – that the thenCzecho-Slovakia was no “democracy” and no “state of law”, but rather a state ofseveral nationalities being held together by a Czech leadership group, and thisstate’s internal policy had as its leitmotiv the battle of nationality. The BritishEnvoy in Prague, Newton, felt obliged on 19 April 1938, to make the followingrecommendation:

“… the first essential would seem to be substitute on each occasion for theexpression ‘minorities’ the expression ‘nationalities’; for if there was one thingwhich roused the ire of the Sudeten Germans to-day, it was the application to

35) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. I, doc. 156: the British Ambassador inPrague, Newton, to Halifax on 23 April 1938 concerning his discussion with Benes.

36) ADAP, vol. II, doc. 38, p. 88, 87: Report of Eisenlohr, the German Minister in Czecho-Slovakia,to the German Foreign Ministry on 21 December 1937.


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them of the term ‘minority’….As a general observation, I would remark to Dr. Benes that he had on

various occasions made a public announcement of the new principles by whichthe administration would be guided in the future and of the spirit in which itwould act; his critics had been wont to reply that these were fine words andnothing more.” 37)

A few days after his meeting with Benes Newton added:

“In using the expression ‘United States of Bohemia and Slovakia’ I explainedI did not wish to raise any question of federation but only to bring out the ideals ofunion and partnership. M. Benes listened with attention and said that he personallyagreed with my remarks. He had long held that Czechoslovakia could not be anational State.... In the Cabinet it was already realised that his programme meantan end of the conception of a national State.”35)

But these too were ‘fine words and nothing more’. After all, “the country was”– to use the words of the Czech Prime Minister Hodza – “too small to allow itselfto be ‘atomized’ ” or that by granting autonomy “to commit suicide”.36) Or, toquote the decision taken by the plenum of the supreme administrative court inPrague on 19 March 1919 (3 months before the signing of the Versailles peacediktat): The national minorities might be granted rights only to the degree thatthereby “the character of Czecho-Slovakia as a national state” is not ruined.38)

Needless to say, this set phrase became the guideline for legislation and governmentpractice

“not only in Czecho-Slovakia but also in most of the states that had beenestablished or expanded by the peace treaties of 1919-1920.” 38)

That Eduard Benes, at that time Czech Foreign Minister, was involved duringthe years 1918-1921 in the enforced transference of German territory to Poland ismentioned only in passing.39)

This Benes, having advanced to President in 1935, deemed himself qualified inhome affairs on the basis of his strategy in foreign affairs, as described in his memoirs:

“During all those exacting and exhausting negotiations (from 1935onwards), I tried my utmost to steer a straight course with the Soviet Union onone side and France on the other. On June 4th 1936, after the French elections

37) Documents on British Foreign PoIicy 1919-1939, vol. I, doc.150.38) K. Rabl, op. cit., pp. 99, 234.39) ibid., p. 102.


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which resulted in the formation of the Government of the Popular Front, thenew Premier, Léon Blum, had sent me a message that France would neveragain behave with such weakness as his predecessor had done at the time ofthe occupation of the left bank of the Rhine and assured me that his Governmentwould be strong and firm towards Germany and that we might count on this.

This was really France’s last stand. The Foreign Minister, J. Paul-Boncour,sent me a number of messages in the same strain. He tried especially to re-establish the Eastern front of the Little Entente and he also tried to win overPoland.” 40)

It now becomes evident that the political and military co-operation betweenCzecho-Slovakia and a Soviet Union geared for world conquest, with thepurchasing of Soviet bombers and the Soviet promise of assistance in spite of theabsence of a common frontier, as well the French attempt to open up a route toPrague for the Red Army in the event of war,41) was to have a disastrous effect onthe development in Europe.42)

“Russia had already delivered three hundred war planes to Czecho-Slovakia,and in addition several squadrons of Soviet planes were on Czechoslovakairfields.” 43)

Not Hitler, but Eduard Benes, had been aggravating the Sudetenland crisismore and more! The British historian A.J.P. Taylor was to confirm that “In thespring of 1938 Hitler did not see his way clearly”, but that Benes, however, waswilling to settle his Sudetenland problem – “insoluble at home” – “on theinternational field”.44) The diplomatic records show that on 12 March 1938 theassurance was given by Göring to the Czechs that “Germany is not consideringtaking action against Czecho-Slovakia”. After the Anschluss, Hitler stated that the“solving of the Czechoslovak question was not urgent”,45) and there is no proofthat he acted otherwise.

“It is often said that the Nazis deliberately roused up otherwise contentedGerman minorities to imagine their grievances and make political capital forGermany out of them. The impartial investigations of Lord Runcimaneffectually routed this charge. Hitler had not stirred up discontent in theSudetenland.46a) On the contrary! German diplomats in Bohemia tried to hold

40) E. Benes, Memoirs of Dr. Eduard Benes, p. 34.41) H. Roos, op. cit., p. 321.42) E. Benes, op. cit., p. 40.43) H.E. Barnes, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, p. 198.44) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 153.45) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. I, p. 47, and A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., pp. 148, 151-155.46a) P.H. Nicoll, Britain’s Blunder, p. 13.


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back the Sudeten Germans in the face of any Czech provocation, when theexcitement over the union of Austria with Germany was at its peak.” 46b)

Other politicians, on the other hand, were already examining the Czecho-Slovakquestion “long before Hitler had formulated his intentions”.47)

“Not only did the British and French urge concessions on the Czechs. TheBritish also urged Hitler (already on 10 May 1938) to make demands. Thistook him by surprise.” 48)

Before the May 1938 crisis, the Reich government had on six occasionsendeavoured to negotiate with Benes. He turned down the German negotiatorsevery time.

“He does not even consider it worth the effort to reply to the offer sent tohim by telegraph on 16 February 1938, by the German Envoy Eisenlohr.” 49)

The May crisis in 1938 was triggered off by President Benes with his order formobilization of the Czechoslovak army. As a pretext he used rumours of allegedconcentration of German troops on the Czech border. The source of these rumourswere British news services, “apparently from the Foreign Office”.50) In any case,they were originating from the same capital city whence it had just recently beenput to Hitler to make demands in respect to Czecho-Slovakia “which had surprisedhim very much”. Needless to say that these rumours and their consequence in theshape of the Czech mobilization likewise “surprised” him.

“In actual fact there is no movement of German troops – as was establishedbeyond a doubt at the Nuremberg trials after the war. What then induced theCzech government to start these clear provocations for war?

There are only two possibilities, the accuracy of which, however, can onlybe a matter of conjecture for now. Either the Czech government, similar toSchuschnigg with his ‘plebiscite’, simply took a leap forward and quitedeliberately provoked a war…

There is the other possibility in that German resistance circles learned ofthe drawing up of the second survey ‘Green’, but not the contents. PossiblyLondon was informed of the designing of this study – anti-Nazi circles at thehighest military level were in fact giving information of the most secret military

46b) P.H. Nicoll, ibid. (German edition), p. 48.47) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 155.48) ibid., p. 161.49) R. Pozorny, op. cit., p. 374.50) E. Moravec, op. cit., p. 241, and A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 165.


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nature to the British government – and from that would have drawn theconclusion that the study was a short-term plan of attack.

The British and French press is filled with alarming reports. War seemsdirectly imminent! Henderson, the British Ambassador in Berlin, advises hiscivil servants to send their wives and children back home. He makes the samerecommendation to the press corps.

The protests continued to pour in – not against the Czech mobilization, butagainst the non-existent German troop movements. The governments of Franceand the Soviet Union openly threaten with military intervention.” 51)

In fact, mobilization signifies to be in a state of war, even today after theSecond World War! Benes was upholding the mobilization even when the rumoursthat had been used as pretext were disproven by (neutral) foreign journalists andmilitary attachés; the reservists would only be demobbed mid June 1938. Britainand France, in spite of Hitler’s appeals, never advised the Czechs to cancel theirmobilization!

Hitler issued a secret directive on the very first day of the Czech mobiliza-tion, on 21 May 1938, “that it was not his intention to take action againstCzecho-Slovakia in the near future”.52) This proves that Hitler did not want to beprovoked and, furthermore, was not looking for a convincing pretext, acceptableto world opinion, for crushing Czecho-Slovakia. He could not have wished for abetter justification for an attack – had he been out to make conquests – than thepremature mobilization of the opponent, together with the corroboration of theneutral, as well as the British and French, military attachés that the explanation asadvanced by Benes was a fabrication. (Hitler took a similar stance in the face ofthe renewed Czech mobilization of 23-24 September 1938.) The chain of evidencecontinues and stretches as far as the falsification of the, still to be separatelyinvestigated, ‘Hossbach-Memorandum’ (5 November 1937) in the year 1945, inwhich, amongst others, this sentence was passed off as authentic:

“Hitler had decided to tackle the solution to the German question of territoryand to advance by force against Czecho-Slovakia and Austria at the nextavailable opportunity.”

In reality, he did not take the next available opportunity. Therefore, no suchplan or decision could have existed.

The Czechs, however, were not content with mobilization only. They were, at

51) K. Zentner, Illustrierte Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges, p. 49.52) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. I, p. 36.


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the same time, intensifying their military action against the inhabitants of the borderzones and were also escalating their hostile press campaign with the mockingargument, Hitler’s restraint and inactivity was to be taken as a sign of weakness.Therefore, as Hitler had apparently already retreated from tiny Czecho-Slovakia,how easy it should be, then, for the Great Powers to finish the Reich!53) Thus, thisand more could be thrust at Germany without running any risk whatsoever! Thepress of the West collaborated and

“was praising the Czech military machine again and again for theunexpected efficiency and quickness with which it was working. We regainedour confidence, seeing that we were not alone.” 54)

How provocative the moves were from Eduard Benes would also be evidentin the weeks before the Munich conference in that he could not even be persuadedby the pressure exerted by the Western Powers to propose a compromise solutionto the Sudeten-Germans.55) The reason for this was that besides the Western Powershe could bring yet another “friend” into the game: Stalin.

“The Soviet government, which had declared itself ready to fulfil itscommitments under the Soviet-Czech agreement, confirmed in mid-May 1938its willingness to defend Czecho-Slovakia against any aggressor, even if Franceshould refuse to help.” 56)

“The Soviet government approached the governments of Great Britainand France several times suggesting combined operations in support of Czecho-Slovakia. …

The Soviet Union declared itself ready to intervene on behalf of Czecho-Slovakia, even if France were not to grant her support, which, however, hadbeen a prerequisite for Soviet aid… even if Poland or… Rumania should refuseto allow Soviet troops to pass through their territory. The Soviet governmentinformed the President and the government of Czecho-Slovakia that the SovietUnion would assist Czecho-Slovakia under one condition: when Czecho-Slovakia is willing to defend herself and will ask for Soviet help.” 57)

For the rest, this Soviet promise of aid was unconditional, i.e. independent ofthe legal position and of the “question of the aggressor”. According to Sovietteaching, everybody is an aggressor anyway, who has been labelled as such by theCommunists, irrespective of the circumstances. Even the US Ambassador in Paris,

53) E. Kordt, Nicht aus den Akten, p. 227.54) E. Moravec, op. cit., p. 242. – Moravec was a Colonel on the Czech General Staff.55) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. I, p. 56.56) A.I. Nedoresov, “The National Liberation Movement in Czecho-Slovakia” (Russian), pp. 37, 39.57) W.P. Bondarenko and P.I. Resonova, “The Anti-Fascist Resistance Movement” (Russian),

pp. 95-96.


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Bullit, seemed to be getting perturbed by the crisis- and war-promoting influenceof the Soviet Union on the Czech government. In a letter to President Rooseveltof 22 May 1938 he advised that the general mobilization ordered by the Czechgovernment

“has to be understood as provoking war, which could have only one result:establishing Bolshevism on the whole continent.” 56)

The Munich conference, which took place four months after these events,could have been avoided if President Benes had accorded to the German minoritiesthe rights which had already been guaranteed in 1919, and if he had not let himselfget carried away in continual provocations in the certitude of enjoying the supportof his many and powerful and, sometimes, goading “friends”.

At that time there were 500,000 Sudeten Germans permanently unemployed,without any support from insurance benefits and without assistance from the tradeunion or health funds (out of 800,000 in the whole of Czecho-Slovakia); to thosenumbers the destitute dependants need to be added – such a state of affairs couldnot remain unchanged. In Czecho-Slovakia, payment of unemployment benefitswas tied to membership of a trade union and would in this instance still only bepaid for six months. The subsequent phase would be social welfare or the relieffund of the community. This would amount to a weekly payment (monthly in thecase of money from the relief fund) of 10 Crowns for single people and 20 Crowns(one to two Reichsmark) 58) for married people. This whole picture of misery isenlarged by the consequential result of this situation in the form of malnutritionand disease, a rising death rate and a severe decline in marriages and births. Thesystematic ousting of the Sudeten Germans from the economy and theadministration, even in their exclusively German spheres, remained a politicalconcept, and as such was bound to lead to an aggravation of the situation. The200 paragraph “Defence of the Realm Act” and its implementation decrees of 23June 1936 supplied the “legal basis” for the elimination and weeding out of theSudeten Germans complete with their culture and traditions. This law was embarkedupon immediately by the newly elected President and thus “Commander-in-Chiefof the armed forces”, Eduard Benes, upon his election on 18 December 1935, andit remained one of the longest lasting corpus of law. With the aid of ambiguousphraseology concerning “national unreliability”, any employee could be dismissedand any employer dispossessed, who did not suit the Prague government. Anyremaining possibilities left to the Sudeten Germans for eking out a living, whichhad not been covered by this last regulation, were eliminated by the “borderland”

58) R.Jung, Die Tschechen, pp. 151-152.


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rule. The refusal to exert any political influence on these entire happenings, theflight of more than 214,000 Sudeten Germans across the border to Germany, theslaying of 200 Sudeten Germans and much suffering were bound to bring thesituation, without any influence from Hitler, continually to a head. Every foreignvisitor, who was travelling in those parts at that time, was agreed that this state ofaffairs was intolerable.59) Lord Runciman, the British government’s special Envoy,who stayed in Czecho-Slovakia from 25 July until mid-September 1938 toinvestigate the situation on the spot, was just one amongst many.

The British leadership was being kept very well informed about the condi-tions in Czecho-Slovakia during all these years, since elected representatives ofthe Sudeten Germans had been making their plight known to British politicianssince 1919.

“However, it was the German landowners, Democrats and Social-Democratsin Czecho-Slovakia that had been applying for help from the British governmentin London against Czech oppression in the days before National Socialism.Only later did Henlein and his fellow party members also come to the Thamesto make representations for the same reasons. Already in the summer of 1937,Henlein had travelled to London to personally transact independent negotiationson the granting of autonomy for the Sudeten German regions in Czecho-Slovakia; already at that time did the British government – acknowledging thejustification of the Sudeten German demands – give Henlein the assurancethat it would support his endeavours.” 60)

The Sudeten German claim to self-determination and independence was raisedonly at the very last,

(a) after the rejection of their numerous proposals, very modest in scope, whichwere brought forward frequently over many years of enduring patience, suggesting,therefore, peaceable intentions;

(b) after the announcement of military law in the Sudeten territory by the Czechgovernment on 12 September 1938 (demand made by Henlein on 15 September);

(c) after the British press and Lord Runciman, even Mr. Chamberlain as thePrime Minister and also Winston Churchill, were recommending a cession toGermany.

This is an example written on the 14 May 1938 in the New York Times by“Augur”, a former diplomatic correspondent of the London Times:

59) W. Jaksch, op. cit., p. 270, and ADAP, vol. II, doc.23, pp. 41-51.60) F. Hesse, Das Spiel um Deutschland, pp. 109-110.


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“Mr. Chamberlain today… certainly favours a more drastic measure –namely, separation of the German districts from the body of the CzechoslovakRepublic and the annexation of them to Germany.” 61)

Winston Churchill, in the leading article in The Times on 7 September, made itpatently obvious

“that the best way out of the situation would be the transfer of the Sudetendistricts by Czecho-Slovakia to Germany.” 62)

Of course, after the Munich conference Churchill then referred to it as the“model democratic state of central Europe” – (see the references to his war-mongering speeches on pages 49-51.)

Lord Runciman, in his report to the British government dated 21 September1938, unequivocally recommended the transfer of the Sudetenland to Germany,

“since there exists the danger of a civil war and the Czech government isin no satisfactory measure prepared to accommodate any concessions.” 63)

In spite of these and other attempts at mediation and much good counsel theCzech government was not willing to give way. Too powerful, after all, provedthe influence from Moscow. Benes had received from Stalin once more, in answerto his enquiry, the assurance that the Red Army would be marching in the event ofa German-Czech conflict, even if France was not going to intervene militarilyand, in fact, irrespective on whatever grounds the conflict would break out.64) Thestipulation for this deployment was merely – as already stated – that the Czecharmy should be ready for battle and that the help of the Red Army should berequested.

“For its part, the Government of the USSR was inviting the FrenchGovernment immediately (at the beginning of September 1938) to arrange aconsultation between representatives of the Soviet, French and CzechoslovakGeneral Staffs to work out the necessary measures. Litvinov thought Rumaniawould allow Soviet troops and aircraft transit through its territory, but con-sidered it very desirable, in order to influence Rumania in this sense, to put thequestion of eventual aid to Czecho-Slovakia before the League of Nations assoon as possible. If there were even a majority in the League Council in favour

61) M. Gilbert and R. Gott, The Appeasers, p. 126.62) W. Churchill, op. cit., p. 232, and I.M. Maisky, Who helped Hitler? p. 81.63) “Documents and Materials on the Period Preceding the Second World War” (Russian), vol. I,

pp. 220-238, especially pp. 232-234.64) A.I. Nedorosov, op. cit., pp. 46, 51.


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of such aid (strictly according to the Covenant, unanimity was required)Rumania would undoubtedly support it, and would not object to Soviet forcespassing through its territory.” 65)

The objective of the Soviet Union must have been obvious to every politicianof the Western Powers: after all, Lenin was teaching already in 1917 that theproletarian revolution would increase the differences among the capitalist nationsto the point of creating wars and the eventual self destruction of capitalism, to befollowed by the decisive weight of Soviet might tipping the scales in favour ofestablishing world-wide Bolshevism.

Stalin reinforced his readiness for action and, consequently, his encouragementfor Benes’ inflammatory policies with appropriate measures:

“In these past few days the government of the Soviet Union has confirmedagain her willingness to help the peoples of Czecho-Slovakia without delayand has approved to this end fitting practical measures. Thirty infantry andseveral cavalry divisions of the Soviet army have been assembled on the westernborder of the USSR. The air force and armoured units have been put on standby. ‘The Soviet armed forces’ – as Nikita Khrushtchev recalled in 1955 –‘were at that time put on a state of alert in order to check Hitler’s aggressiondirected against Czecho-Slovakia’. ” 64)

On 12 September 1938, at the final session of the NSDAP congress in Nürnberg,Hitler stated in greater details his position on the Czech policy and declared thatthe Reich government was not indifferent to the lack and abolition of the rights ofthe Sudeten Germans, affirming that no European state had made more sacrificesfor the sake of peace than Germany, but that these sacrifices had limits.

As a result of that: 12 September:

“Military law is imposed on almost all regions of the CzechoslovakRepublic. The Czechs adopt still more radical measures: intensifying of presscensorship, prohibition of assembly, independent military action and measurestaken by local police.

Konrad Henlein issues a six-hour ultimatum to the government that demandsthe repeal of martial law, the withdrawal of Czech police from the SudetenGerman areas, and the billeting of the soldiers in purely military quarters.

After the deadline had passed, the Sudeten German delegation breaks offnegotiations with the government and leaves Prague.”

65) I.M. Maisky, op. cit., p. 79.


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On 13 September:

“The Czechs are taking stringent police and military measures and enforceen masse a wave of arrests. Some high officials of the Sudeten German partyare leaving Czecho-Slovakia.

The Runciman delegation acknowledges that in the present circumstancesthe demands of the Sudeten German party are understandable and justifiable.”

15 September:

“Konrad Henlein releases a proclamation to the Sudeten Germans and tothe world in which he demands the joining of the Sudeten territory with theReich. Formation of a Sudeten German volunteer corps in Germany.” 66)

Prague answered on 16 September with the dissolution of the Sudeten GermanParty, which deprived 3.5 million Sudeten Germans of every possible democraticand organizational representation, with a “wanted” poster of Konrad Henlein andwith the cutting of all telephone links with the German Reich.67) On 17 Septembera further set of extraordinary measures were added, which abrogated a whole hostof constitutional articles. On 19 September, London and Paris were demanding ofBenes in the so-called “Anglo-French plan” the ceding of the Sudetenland (of theterritory with more than 50% German population) and withdrew their promise ofmilitary assistance in case of conflict. The two Western Powers increased on 21September, on the basis of Lord Runciman’s final report, their pressure on Benes,informing him

“that he could no longer count on military assistance, in the event ofGermany invading Czechoslovak territory.” 68)

After that, Benes accepted the British-French demands on 21 September, onthe same day as Hungary and Poland notified the Czechoslovak government oftheir respective territorial claims, for the cession of the territories populated byHungarians and Poles.

22 September:

“The government of Milan Hodza resigns. Enormous Czech demonstra-tions call for the most stringent measures against Sudeten Germans. Arrestson a huge scale follow, prompting a mass-exodus from the German border

66) R. Pozorny, op. cit., p. 304.67) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. II, doc. 1033, and K. Ploetz, Auszug aus

der Geschichte (1939), p. 720.68) E. Moravec, op. cit., p. 340.


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areas to the Reich. The Czech Army General Sirovy is asked by Benes to forma government.” 69)

On the same day of 22 September, Mr. Chamberlain meets Hitler in BadGodesberg, after firstly having obtained the approval of the British Parliament forthe handing over of the Sudetenland to Germany, which had been the subject ofthe discussions on his visit to Berchtesgaden on 15 September. As a result of thechanging circumstances happening within a few short days, Hitler found himselfcompelled having to insist on a short term solution, which would be interpretedabroad by the “fixers of public opinion” – quite uncalled for – as “new demandsfrom Hitler to provocatively aggravate the situation”.

At the time of this Godesberg conference, still other forces were exacerbatingthe situation in Europe. It was mainly Lord Halifax in London who was providingthe new inflammatory material: Already on 22 September, he was pushing theBritish delegation by telegraph to giving their approval for advising the Czechgovernment to mobilize. Henderson succeeded in the postponement of this advice.But in spite of this and despite the fact Halifax was far away from the scene, theBritish Foreign Minister was urging once more on 23 September: “It is oursuggestion to permit the Czech mobilization as of 3.00 p.m.” “You should wait abit longer,” was Henderson’s reply. In the meantime, the French Prime MinisterDaladier stated also that “the Czech mobilization must no longer be postponed”.At 4.00 p.m. the British delegation in Bad Godesberg yielded to these pressures,70)

although Hitler at this moment was telling Mr. Chamberlain that the Czechs hadjust then shot 12 German hostages, and he gave him the assurance that he wouldnot be issuing any marching orders to the army during the time of the negotiations.71)

Straight after the go-ahead from the Foreign Office in London the Czechgovernment announced a general mobilization, thereby calling to arms 1.5 millionsoldiers, and the railway traffic to the German Reich was cut for the whole network.Once again, the situation was changed, that is to say, had become worse – notbecause of Hitler. The conference at Bad Godesberg was wrecked by the Czechmobilization. Again the world press put the responsibility for the “foundering of apeaceful solution” on Hitler. – No mention was made of Halifax busying himselfin the background.

Other protagonists are to be mentioned also, namely the Soviets:

“The Czechoslovak Government rejected Hitler’s Godesberg programme

69) R. Pozorny, op. cit., p. 306.70) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. II, doc. 1031, 1035, 1044, 1046, 1047, 1049.71) ibid., doc. 1033.


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(22-23 September 1938). In making up their minds the Czechoslovaks wereinfluenced a good deal by the assurance received from the Soviet Union a fewdays before that it was ready to afford Czecho-Slovakia assistance in anyconditions, even should France betray her.” 72)

Alarmed by the turn of events, the British delegation at Bad Godesberg, led byChamberlain without his Foreign Secretary Halifax, sent on 24 September amemorandum to Newton, British Ambassador in Prague:

“Reports which are increasing in number from hour to hour regardingincidents in the Sudetenland show that the situation has become completelyintolerable for the Sudeten German people and, in consequence, a danger tothe peace of Europe. It is therefore essential that the separation of theSudetenland agreed to by Czecho-Slovakia should be effected without anyfurther delay.” 73)

On 26 September Hitler made a speech at the Sportpalast in which he said:

“Faced by the declaration of England and of France that they would nolonger support Czecho-Slovakia if at last the fate of these peoples was notchanged and the areas liberated, Mr. Benes found a way of escape. He concededthat these districts must be surrendered. That was what he stated, but what didhe do? He did not surrender the area but the Germans he now drives out! Andthat is now the point at which the game comes to an end! No sooner had Mr.Benes spoken when he began his military subjugation afresh – only with stillgreater violence. We see the appalling figures: on one day 10,000 fugitives, onthe next 20,000, a day later already 37,000, again two days later 41,000, then62,000, then 78,000, now 90,000, 107,000, 137,000 and today 214,000.” 74)

On 27 September, President Benes had all radios in the Sudeten areasconfiscated and had 20,000 Sudeten Germans arbitrarily arrested and taken hostage,whose execution he had planned in case of conflict.75) Then the Czechs destroyed247 bridges in the region.76) Benes was eager to procure binding promises fromBritain and France with the help of the intensifying crisis created by his politicsand to widen the internal problems of Czecho-Slovakia into a European crisis.77)

He was even willing to unleash a war to obtain his objective. His memoirs –

72) I.M. Maisky, op. cit., p. 84.73) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. II, doc. 1068.74) G. Rühle, Das Dritte Reich, vol. 1938, p. 253.75) R. Pozorny, op. cit., p. 307, 303.76) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. I, p. 237.77) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 153.


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“apparently a section of the memoirs considered as lost” 78) – contain the followingappeals, or rather statements:

Eduard Benes’ speech made on the radio on 22 September 1938:

“To escape from a war with Germany is impossible. It will either takeplace now or later. I would wish for it to happen now. The duty of ourgovernment is to preserve the state up to the moment, when a further crisisinvolving Germany will happen. This crisis is inevitable; from it a general warwill start up that will give us back all that we would be losing now.”

On 23 September 1938:

“I convoked the government with representatives of the political partiesand the army to the Hradschin and demanded the approval for mobilizationwhile not hiding from them the fact that in a few days a general war, in whichFrance, Russia and Great Britain were on our side, would break out in Europe....

I was convinced that a general war against Germany had to come.”

To his generals:

“Prepare for an imminent war, we shall yet have a role in it.” 78)

On 2 October 1938 Benes confided to one of his General Staff officers that hehad not expected the “weakness and treason of the West”.79)

“In spite of the mobilization of our whole army, the Munich Agreement…was forced upon us.” 80)

He who proclaims continuously – as indeed Eduard Benes had admitted to –the inevitability of a great “general” war is using a conspicuously obvious language.As a prominent politician, he is doing all he can to promote such a developmentand to worsen the situation. The danger was all the greater, especially since,unfortunately, the Soviet Union with her world revolutionary designs, was also tobe in on it. This language was also heard and understood in Britain and Francemonths before “Munich”. It was also known in those countries that Germany hadrefrained from exerting direct pressure on the Czech government for as long as

78) Frankfurter Allgemeine, 11 March 1959, p. 11.79) E. Moravec, op. cit., p. 24.80) E. Benes, op. cit., p. 43.


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possible – in spite of the provocative actions of the Czech politicians.81) It wasalso known in those countries that Benes considered his army to be the best inEurope and his fortifications equal to the Maginot Line, perhaps even superior toit, and that he, since his election to the presidency on 18 December 1935, hadbased his policies on the “feeling that Europe was heading towards a vast conflict”.Benes admitted:

“I therefore decided in the first place to redouble our efforts to bring ourarmy to a high pitch of perfection. To this task I dedicated myself with greaterenergy and devotion than to anything else before.

I was always proud of the fact that in these three years [1936, 1937, 1938]the Czechoslovak Republic did more in this direction than any other democraticState in Europe and that when we mobilized in September, 1938, the Republicwas properly prepared for war – with two exceptions – one of these was in thesphere of civil air-raid defence. The other was the unfinished state of thefortifications on our Southern frontier with Austria.

In so far as its army was concerned, France was better equipped than GreatBritain, but in 1938 she also was quite unprepared for sudden war, especiallya modern one. Its preparations could not compare with Czecho-Slovakia’s.This is surely strange seeing that France was informed of our arrangementsdown to the minutest detail by General Faucher, the head of the French militarymission in Prague, who every week attended the military conferences with thePresident of the Republic, and not only knew exactly what we were doing, butwhy we did it [emphasis by Benes].” 82)

In the Western capitals it was well known that the Prague government, prior tothe Munich conference, was willing to organize, together with the Soviet Unionand the Western Powers, General Staff discussions on a “general” war againstGermany;82) this war to be started with the expulsion, or possibly the extermination,of the Sudeten Germans. One wondered in London and Paris how it was that, aftertwenty years of “peaceful” and “democratic” policies, the Czech government stillrejected proposals for a plebiscite in Sudetenland, with the explanation:

“A plebiscite would mean disintegration of the State and, as he said morethan once, civil war.” 83)

81) The implied assertions Hitler had driven Henlein to make ever more unattainable demands onthe Czech government are not supported by any genuine proof. Hitler had not given any ordersto Henlein before the incorporation of the Sudetenland. – cf. inter alia J. Colvin, Vansittart inOffice, p. 207.

82) E. Benes, op. cit., pp. 28, 29, 27, 42.83) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. II, doc. 888.


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No state can rightly claim to build a policy of peace on the oppression offorcibly incorporated minorities and then say that by granting the right of self-determination to these minorities, or that by the granting of equality in fundamentalprinciples in general, the whole state would disintegrate. It is typical of the“provocative attitude of the Reich government” that the first calls for a plebiscitein the Sudetenland came from the British press. Only afterwards, and rather latein the day, did the leader of the Sudeten German party, Konrad Henlein, makesuch a demand.84) Britain as well as France, but also Mr. Benes, realized full wellwhat the outcome of a plebiscite would be.85) Therefore they prevented it with theexplanation that

“Hitler must not be given a weapon for the destruction of the Central-EastEuropean balance.” 86)

Hitler had not demanded the Munich conference in the context of an ultimatum.It had been likewise proposed by other powers and justified on the grounds of acommon European interest. In this connection, the role of US President Rooseveltis, more often than not, misjudged. Yet it was he who, on 26 September 1938, wasurging Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler and Benes in pertinent communications tocall an international conference in order to solve the Sudeten question. SinceRoosevelt took many of his decisions in secret, without consultation or counsellingfrom anyone in his Cabinet,87) and since the US State Department documents onthe Munich conference are, to a large extent, still unavailable,88) one can onlyguess at Roosevelt’s motives.

“Meanwhile we have some clues, all of which point in the same direction,namely, that Mr. Roosevelt did not regard Munich as any final settlement withHitler but believed that it might lead to war at no distant period. Hence, hecontinued his plans for a vast armament program, with emphasis on airplanes,which would help to provide Britain and France with the sinews of war andmake the United States ready for possible involvement in the impendingstruggle.” 88)

Roosevelt knew, or should have known, what was about to be negotiated at theMunich conference. But in spite of this knowledge he did not encourage Britainand France to support the status quo in Czecho-Slovakia. He favoured the Franco-

84) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. I, p. 55.85) ibid., pp. 75, 195.86) ibid., p. 153.87) H.E. Barnes, op. cit., p. 189.88) ibid., p. 200.


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British decision for a transfer of the Sudetenland to the German Reich (messagesfrom Roosevelt of 26 September). Shortly after the ratification of this decision(29 September), his manoeuvres were such “that Chamberlain was made generallyresponsible for the whole disgrace”.88) At the same time he encouraged London,Paris, but also Warsaw

“…to take a stand relative to Germany that was likely, if not sure, to bringwar...” 89)

The backdrop to this stand had been, in the main, correctly perceived by thePolish Ambassador in Washington, Jerzy Potocki, even though the threads whichRoosevelt had personally woven for the Munich conference, remained hiddenfrom him.

On 12 January 1939, Potocki wrote to the Foreign Minister:

“I can only add that, as an astute politician and expert on American mentality,he [President Roosevelt] has succeeded in quickly and adroitly diverting publicopinion from the true domestic situation and interesting that opinion in foreignpolicy.

The ‘modus operandi’ was perfectly simple. All Roosevelt had to do wasto stage correctly, on the one hand, the menace of world-war brought about byChancellor Hitler, while on the other hand, a bogey had to be found that wouldgabble about an attack on the U.S.A. by the totalitarian countries. The MunichPact was indeed a godsend to President Roosevelt. He lost no opportunity intranslating it as France’s and England’s capitulation to bellicose Germanmilitarism. As people say in this country: Hitler drew a gun on Chamberlain.In other words, France and England had no choice and had to conclude a mostshameful peace.” 90)

Roosevelt’s meddling in these European affairs was not done on the basis of

89) ibid., p. 165.90) “German White Book” No. 3 – Polish Documents Relative to the Origin of the War, doc. 6.

These documents, as well as the remaining documents of the other German White Books, havenever been refuted by historical research. These Polish documents have even been validated byPolish diplomats after the war; e.g. the Polish Ambassador in Berlin, Lipski, corroborated them– cf. H.E. Barnes, op. cit., p. 184, note 292, and see D. Hoggan, The Forced War, pp. 604 - 605. ThePolish Ambassador in London, Raczynski, wrote this in his memoirs In Allied London, p. 51:“20 June 1940

The Germans published in April a White Book containing documents from the archives of ourMinistry of Foreign Affairs, consisting of reports from Potocki in Washington, Lukasiewicz inParis and myself. I do not know where they found them, since we were told that the archives hadbeen destroyed. The documents are certainly genuine and the facsimiles show that for the mostpart the Germans had got hold of originals and not merely copies.”


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being an expert in this particular field of problems, or because he had anunderstanding of how best to diffuse the crisis, or because he was aiming to easethe tension in Europe. His involvement was rather on the grounds of self-aggrandizement since – far away from the White House – he was hoping toencounter, as indeed he did, situations and people that could assist him “to play arole” in world politics. Eduard Benes, the Czech President of like-minded views,met Roosevelt on this footing.

But France and Britain refused to be drawn into a conflict over Czecho-Slovakiaby Benes or Roosevelt. Chamberlain, who liked to call Czecho-Slovakia “a far-away country” and the Czechs “people of whom we know nothing”,

“believed also that the country ‘would not have followed us if we had triedto lead it into war to prevent a minority from obtaining autonomy, or evenfrom choosing to pass under some other government’.” 91)

The actions of the British government before Munich were not dictated byfear of war, but rather because of a “belief that Germany had a moral right to theSudeten German territories”.92) Chamberlain himself had already stated in May1938:

“ that not even a victorious peace would restore their [Czech] presentfrontiers.” 91)

The Western Powers induced the Czechs on 19 September 1938 to cede theSudeten German territories to the Reich. Hitler had neither been consulted aboutthis decision nor about talks with the Prague government. Czecho-Slovakia hadalready capitulated in the face of the Anglo-French intervention eight days priorto the Munich accords and was not, as it is still commonly depicted to this day,destroyed by “Munich”. 92)

“In historical context, it is quite understandable that Benes and Hodza wereunwilling to fight to preserve Czecho-Slovakia. Hodza, the former Greater Austrianfederalist and collaborator of Franz Ferdinand, had never really been convincedof the viability of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Benes became a victim of his ownbad conscience. He knew that the territories at stake had been obtained throughforce and subterfuge... A statesman with an unclouded title to defend would haveenjoyed a source of moral courage…and would have stood firm against the Anglo-French urgings – it was nothing more than that.” 92)

91) K. Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, pp. 361-362, 372, 353. – With this remarkChamberlain also acknowledged Benes’ intention for war.

92) W. Jaksch, op. cit., pp. 318-319 (English ed., p. 305).


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So it was that Chamberlain and Daladier flew to Munich with preciseinstructions from their Cabinets and with an agreement already accepted by theCzechs. At Munich it was merely a question of sorting out the agreement. Word-for-word, this is what the agreement states:

“Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, taking into consider-ation the agreement, which has been already reached in principle for the cessionto Germany of the Sudeten German territory, have agreed on the followingterms and conditions governing the said cession and the measures consequentthereon…” 92)

Neville Chamberlain explained in the ensuing, quite extended debates in theHouse of Commons at the beginning of October 1938:

“We did not go [to Munich] to decide whether the predominantly Germanareas in the Sudetenland should be passed over to the German Reich. That hadbeen decided already.” 93)

The conservative member Raikes, stated to the House:

“Do not forget that the Czechs annexed the German areas before the Treatyof Versailles accepted it. Hon. Members talk about time limits, but I wouldremind the House that it took the Czechs twenty years before rights wereconferred on the Sudeten Germans.” 93)

Sir H. Croft remarked on the same occasion:

“The Labour Party and the Liberal Party at the time of the treaty were mostemphatic against the whole of this patchwork-quilt of Czecho-Slovakia.” 93)

The fact that Chamberlain flew to Munich and not Hitler to London cannot beinterpreted as a ‘dictate’ by Hitler. While Hitler was justifiably concerned thathostile demonstrations might ruin the chances of a successful outcome of aconference, so it fitted Chamberlain’s policy to come to Germany, as he wrote ina private letter on 13 September 1938:

“Indeed it would not have suited me [if Hitler had come to London], for itwould have deprived my coup of much of its dramatic force.” 94)

93) ibid., pp. 331-333 (ibid., pp. 322, 324-325).94) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. I, p. 127.


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Chamberlain declared in his important speech in Birmingham on 17 March1939:

“Not one voice of criticism was to be heard when I first announced that Iwould go to Munich. Everybody applauded that experiment.” 95)

During that same speech he added:

“It [the ceding of the Sudetenland to Germany] was something in existenceever since the Treaty of Versailles, a problem that could have been solved longago if the statesmen of the previous 20 years had only had a more generous,more extensive and more enlightened attitude towards their duties. It hadbecome like a long neglected malady, and a surgical operation was necessaryto save the life of the patient.” 95)

How does a German historian assess the situation in the relative calm after theSecond World War?

“As with the preceding Anschluss of Austria to the Reich, so likewise herethe question of the German element with their culture and tradition (theGermanness) in East and South East Central Europe for which a rational solutionhas never been found, this same unsolved question is playing a part here. Itlends to the events in Munich a peculiar double character. It provides Hitlerwith a morally perfect starting position. The sins and shortcomings of theenforced treaties concluded at Versailles, Saint Germain and the Trianon, whichafter the First World War put an end to the state of war but failed to bringabout a proper peace, take their revenge in 1938.

When the Habsburg monarchy fell in 1918, the “provincial governments”of North Bohemia and Moravia-Silesia wanted to unite with the new AustrianRepublic, whose government, in its turn, desired unification of the GermanReich and German-Austria. None of that happened. What came into beingwas an economically non-viable German “rump-Austria” and, on the many-layered ground of the various nationalities in Bohemia and Moravia, anambitious Czech pseudo-national state was brought into existence. In Marchof 1938, events caught up with Austria, while in September of 1938, expiationfor old sins befell Czecho-Slovakia.” 96)

It seems incredible that from October 1938 onwards there appears a persistentfondness for describing the Munich conference as a prime example of the “cynicalpower politics of dictators in relation to the peace-loving and fair-acting

95) ibid., vol. II, pp. 15-16.96) W. Görlitz, ”Griff in die Geschichte“, Die Welt, no. 225 (27 September 1958).


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democracies”. By considering the facts it is absurd to maintain that in thediscussions Hitler had “taken by surprise”, “humiliated” or suchlike his oppositenumber at the talks, a claim that in fact was never made by the two Western headsof government themselves. After the signing of the Munich agreement the twoWestern statesmen were not only wildly acclaimed in Paris and London by thepopulation (as indeed also in Munich), but also the respective parliaments expressedtheir approval by an overwhelming majority.

Therefore, one cannot assert afterwards, as Chamberlain did on 17 March1939 at Birmingham, that Hitler had sprung upon the world with the Sudetenquestion “an unpleasant surprise” which “shocked and affronted public opinionthroughout the world.” 97) The “offending surprise” is to be charged exclusivelyto the Versailles “peace politicians”, as indeed was confirmed by Chamberlainand Daladier with their signatures in Munich. After all, anything associated withthe name “Versailles” after the First World War, was far more than “an offendingsurprise”! There would not have been a Munich conference, had it not been forthe victors’ practice of transgressing against all equality and justice for the pasttwenty years. The “peaceable methods” of diplomacy had been tried and testedfor the resolution of the hair-raising state of affairs in Eastern Europe by thevarious German politicians for twenty years – all without success. So it is hardlysurprising, when after twenty years of patience the manner of amicably askingand complaining is being gradually changed in order to deal with these urgentmatters of concern.

Without a doubt, the yielding at this late stage was only attained through thenotion of an impending war which however, should not be placed solely on Hitler’sshoulders, because the one who was calling for war and who caused the tension tointensify into the threat of war was Eduard Benes! To this should be added certaincircles in the “Western democracies” as well as the Soviet leadership!

“Britain and France announced their mobilization on the following day[28 September 1938]. War seems imminent. In London air-raid protectionmeasures are being taken. Anti-aircraft squads make their appearance. Tens ofthousands of children are immediately evacuated from London. Hospitals arecleared in haste.

In Paris air-raid trenches are being dug, sandbags are piled up in front ofshop windows. The trains leaving the city are stormed and are soonovercrowded. The rush of fleeing motor-cars congests the arterial roads. Thepeople are expecting German bombing-raids, which had been painted bythe newspapers in the most terrible colours over the past few years, at a

97) “German White Book” No. 2, doc. 269, p. 292.


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time when Germany did not even have any bombers. The people are seizedwith panic.” 98)

Moreover, it is pointless in this case to argue whether the ways and meansemployed are acceptable or not, when years of patience, yielding and pleadinghave proved ineffective to protect the rights to existence of millions of people.

“Does a just claim cease to be just because a man backs it by his resolveand by his sword if need be? Mr. Churchill was never a pacifist, he has alwayshonoured the sword. By what philosophy then does he contend that justice isno longer justice if supported by arms? What about Britain and the Boer War?Churchill had taken part in that war, often praising it. Many would rather argue– and with very much force of argument – that a just claim which the claimantis not ready to back by all his might, cannot be so very just after all – or, theclaimant is a bit of a coward.

…If he was prepared to achieve that justice by armed forces, he wasprepared to act in the very way which has not only been accepted, but beenapplauded by the vast majority of mankind in all ages, and by none more thanby our own British race…

…The truth is that Munich made peace by granting Hitler what justice andespecially democratic justice demanded. It was a perfectly worthy peace, thesort of peace which, if concluded oftener at similar conferences, would havesaved the world infinite pain and sorrow.” 99)

“It really is high time, if not already too late, that America stops denyingthe Munich pact and that she starts rebuking the pacts of Yalta and Potsdam, inwhich not only entire ethnic communities but at least seven entire states weresold out and in which half of two continents were cynically betrayed.” 99a)

The Munich agreement had come about according to the rules of internationalcustoms and practices. F.D. Roosevelt and his well-known teams in Britain andFrance and in the United States of America were loosing no time in playing to thegalleries with the slogan, as coined by Roosevelt, of “the overpowering of thepeaceful democracies”. Also, already by 3 October 1938, Chamberlain wasdemanding a British rearmament programme in conjunction with a change of policytowards Germany – these were the real “insulting surprises” with those graveconsequences. Had Chamberlain not just given Hitler a written assurance thatthere would be mutual consultation regarding all major political questions?

98) K. Zentner, op. cit., p. 55.99) P.H. NicoII, op. cit., English ed., pp. 14-15.99a) ibid., German ed., p. 56.


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The Munich agreement as well as the peace-and-friendship declarations “neverto go to war with one another again” were signed by Chamberlain in Germany onhis third visit. If one contrasts this agreement and the three negotiation reportswith Chamberlain’s statement after his (first) visit to the Obersalzberg, it is difficultto believe in the candour and the peace-making intentions of the British premier.Chamberlain declared after his arrival in London on 17 September 1938:

“Hitler was abnormal, unpredictable, surrounded by evil advisers. It wasinconceivable to him that a man could remain for long in this state of hysteria.When he was returning to Bad Godesberg, said the British Premier, he wassetting out to fight with a wild beast.” 100)

According to his biographer, Keith Feiling, Neville Chamberlain regarded warwith Germany as “inevitable” already at the time of the Munich accord, and so hispolicies were geared towards this conflict.101) An incorrect and war promotingattitude! Keith Feiling, supported by a whole series of historical evidence, verifiesthat Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich agreement and the peace-and-friendship-declarations only in order to gain time for rearmament. Göring’s researchdepartment had managed to listen in on and record a long-distance telephoneconversation between Chamberlain and Daladier that revealed the same attitude.Therefore, Hitler was informed about this early. What was not known to him,however, was how widespread this view had already become.

Georges Bonnet, the former French Foreign Minister, confirmed in 1961 in aletter to the New York Times that France and England in 1938 had concluded theMunich agreement with the German government only to gain time to armthemselves against the Reich and to negotiate anti-German pacts with otherstates.102) Undoubtedly – to repeat Chamberlain’s words – “an insulting surprise”for the signatory to the treaty!

The French Ambassador in Berlin of many years’ standing, François-Poncet,declared to the Czech Envoy in Berlin, A. Mastny, straight after the signing of theMunich agreement:

“Believe me... all this is not final. It is but one moment in a story whichhas just begun and which will soon bring up the issue again.” 103)

100) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. I, p. 143.101) K. Feiling, op. cit., p. 359.102) Informationen aus Politik, Wirtschaft und Kultur (PKW), Düsseldorf, 8 December 1961.103) A. François-Poncet, The Fateful Years: Memoirs of a French Ambassador in Berlin 1931-

1938, p. 273.


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On the following day the Czechoslovak Ambassador in London remarked:

“Churchill advises and implores, after deliberations with these people,not to let go of the vital fortifications for at least 48 hours. He is convincedthat a huge reaction to the treason perpetrated on us will begin here andthen spread.”104)

Irrespective of the attitude of those diplomats, the French National Assemblyon 4 October 1938 applauded the Munich accords, avoiding any provocativediscussions. In Britain, Lord Halifax declared in the debate on the Munichconference in the House of Lords on 3 October 1938:

“Great Britain should never fight for a foreign state unless she was in aposition to restore its old frontiers after a victorious war.” 105)

Winston Churchill, however, understood his statement like this:

“Hitler should not be allowed to ‘get away with it’… [Hitler] had extractedBritish concessions at pistol point.” 106)

To Winston Churchill, Lord Halifax, Duff Cooper, Vansittart, Eden and theothers who now were directing British foreign policy often from behind the scenes,the Munich agreement signified that “the whole equilibrium of Europe has beenderanged”.107) This impaired balance called for, according to the “law of Britishforeign policy”, an appropriate gear change for the destruction of “the mostaggressive tyrant on the European continent”. These gears had already beenchanged, before the so-called “Crystal night” of 9 November 1938! 108)

The Polish Ambassador in London, Count Raczynski, portrayed Britain’s policypost-“Munich” in these words:

“The situation after Munich is described here as a situation which is neitherwar nor peace,” 109)

and he remarked on the “phraseology that is regularly fed to the (British)

104) F. Lenz, Zauber um Dr. Schacht, p. 45.105) D. Hoggan, The Forced War, p. 188.106) ibid., p. 190.107) W. Churchill, op. cit., p. 257.108) H. Dahms, Roosevelt und der Krieg, p. 42.109) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. I, p. 356.


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public opinion”.109) This conduct displayed by Great Britain was, keeping toChamberlain’s words, an “insulting surprise” – for Germany!

The Conservative Party of Great Britain did uphold the legal validity andexpediency of the Munich agreement, at any rate, right up to the middle of thewar.110) Be that as it may, one cannot rightfully attempt, one fine day, compelledby motives of purely political interest, to settle historical facts for good and all.Neither the Munich treaty nor Hitler’s subsequent policies were pushing any oneof the neighbouring countries or any other European power towards a militaryconfrontation to the point of becoming unavoidable!

Adolf Hitler commented factually, when addressing the German Reichstag on28 April 1939, on the policies of the Allies after the Munich conference:

“If the cry of ‘Never another Munich’ is raised in the world today, thissimply confirms the fact that a peaceful solution of the problem appeared tobe the most fatal thing that ever happened in the eyes of those warmongers.”

Benes confirmed after the war, having returned to Prague and looking downupon the city from his presidential palace:

“Is it not beautiful? The only central European City not destroyed. And allmy doing.” 111)

Prague

The “brutal violation of little, defenceless Czecho-Slovakia” – a statementthat was given as reason for concluding that Hitler had broken his promise andwas also in breach of trust – was another example of the falsehood which wasunceasingly pounded into the masses by the opinion-makers of the press. Theincorporation of Bohemia and Moravia into the Reich had equally as little to dowith the realization of territorial claims as it had with a plan of attack, a “plotagainst peace”, or the “creation of a platform for the encirclement of Poland andfor a breakthrough to the Black Sea”. This action arose from the inevitableconsequence and the interplay of various historical, ethnographic, political andmilitary factors.

The disintegration of this multi-cultural creation, joined together in totaldisregard of historical and national principles, happened without any Germanhelp and would already have come about in 1918 had not Russia and Germanybeen utterly and totally destroyed. Who in the world is aware nowadays that there

110) W. Jaksch, op. cit., p. 343.111) AJ.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 185.


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were in existence – just to give an example of the diverse tension-producingelements in this State – in Czecho-Slovakia, apart from the different languages ofall the minority groups, even two national anthems, one for the Czechs and onefor the Slovaks? Poland and Hungary were asserting territorial claims and Carpatho-Ukrainians were demanding their independence. The People’s Party of Hlinkawas already insisting strongly at Whitsun 1938 (30 May) – months before the newSudeten solution! – actually on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of thePittsburgh agreement, on autonomy for the Slovaks.

The Pittsburgh agreement of 31 May 1918 had been negotiated during theFirst World War by Tomas G. Masaryk, who was to become the first president ofthe Czecho-Slovak Republic, and a group of Slovakian emigrants to the UnitedStates. It was the “Pittsburgh Post” that announced then to the world the foundingof this Czecho-Slovakia.

“Professor T.G. Masaryk was the only representative of the smallest Czechparty – the so-called Progressives – in the Vienna parliament. He was in noway entitled to speak in the name of the Czech nation. During the war hisconduct was sharply criticised abroad and in Bohemia...

The Czech people by no means echoed Masaryk’s battle-cry: ‘DestroyAustria!’ ” 1)

The Slovaks for their part were insisting from the beginning that the “SlovakianLeague in America” did not have the authority to consider themselves as theexecutor for the Slovak people.2) At any rate, there is – out of consideration forWoodrow Wilson alone, on whose approval the whole project depended in 1918– in the agreement an assurance given for a cultural special position for the Slovaks,i.e. independence in cultural matters. In addition it was set forth that the electedrepresentatives of the Slovakian people should, within the next ten years at thelatest, be given the opportunity to decide for themselves on the future of Slovakia.The Pittsburgh treaty had placed the government, or rather the parliament, of theplanned state under the obligation to incorporate this fact in the constitution andto organize on federal lines the state that was to be established. Already in 1919the Pittsburgh agreement was broken when the so-called Revolutionary NationalAssembly that was not made up of lawfully elected representatives of the peoplebut was rather arbitrarily put together – and where Slovaks were actuallyrepresented by Czech delegates – approved a constitution of the Czecho-SlovakianRepublic which did not respect fundamental clauses of the Pittsburgh accord.Since the Allied Powers were not lifting a finger for the rights of the Slovaks as

1) E.D. Miksche, Unconditional Surrender, p. 176.2) ibid., p. 196.


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laid down in the Pittsburgh agreement, so over the years a constantly growingtension which was already exacerbated by the leadership in Prague, was buildingup between the Czechs and the Slovaks.3)

As all the posited demands made on the occasion of the twentieth anniversaryof the Pittsburgh agreement had been denied, all Slovakian members of parliament,with the exception of the Communists and Social Democrats – there was neitherpressure nor encouragement from Hitler – on the 6 October 1938 were requestingautonomy once again. This did not come about, first and foremost, as a reaction tothe policies of the German Reich, but rather because of the Pittsburgh agreementand its violation by the Czechs.

For twenty long years the Czechs have flouted their commitments. On thebasis of the parliamentary decision of 6 October 1938, Dr. Tiso had formed on the7 October 1938 an autonomous Slovakian government in Pressburg which wasrecognized by the Prague Cabinet, the Munich accord still fresh in their minds.Immediately after, on 9 October 1938, the Carpatho-Ukraine likewise organizedin Uschhorod an autonomous government under Brody, which was also acceptedby Prague. The two Prime Ministers of both nationalities were sworn in on theconstitution of the State in Prague, having now become a Federal Republic. Onthe 22 November 1938 a formal constitutional amendment in Prague – the SlovakAutonomy Law – came into force. Although its provisions did not satisfy thehopes of the Slovakian people, it was, nevertheless, a further milestone along theroute of an internal political development where sections of the population wereagitating for independence. With the help of this Autonomy Law a provincialSlovak government was envisaged: It would have administrative and executivepowers, i.e. a Slovak Diet (parliament) with wide legislative authority, but certainsubjects of common interest would be reserved for the central government inPrague. Hitler had, at first, even encouraged Czech opposition to the impatienceof the Slovakian people and also to the Hungarian territorial claims after the Munichconference. For example, he had endeavoured still in February 1939 to impedethe Slovakian struggle for independence4) (There were still 113,000 Germans inSlovakia).5) Yet, Hitler could not resolve the fundamental differences in these twopeoples. By invoking the Slovak Autonomy Law the Slovaks were demanding, inthe spring of 1939, the right to have a say in the allocation of taxes, the right toself-administration and to be given a voice deciding the leadership of the Czecho-Slovakian armed forces. The Czechs turned down these demands, and the Slovaks

3) F. Durcansky, Die slowakische Frage eine internationale Frage.4) M. Beloff, The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia 1929-1941, vol. II, p. 214.5) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 230.


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remained second class citizens in their own country, although they were now able,in contrast to previous times, to intensify their actions for independence.

While the British Ambassador in Prague, Newton, had already reported on 6March 1939 that “relations between Czechs and Slovaks to be ‘heading for acrisis’”,6) so the “Foreign Office Memorandum on the Position of His Majesty’sGovernment in connection with possible Developments of the Slovak Crisis” of13 March referred to “The position in Slovakia” as “thoroughly unsatisfactorysince Munich”.5) It conveyed the expectancy that in view of the German pressreports on Czech acts of terrorism Hitler may be marching upon Prague, and itstated in these actual words:

“ Until very recently there were no signs of German intervention on thelines of (b)... [b = deliberate disintegration of the Czechoslovak state byGermany.]

Both the official Czech broadcast and Dr. Chvalkowsky maintained thatthere was no evidence that such propaganda had been inspired from the Reichor by the German minority in Czecho-Slovakia...

The most likely development of the present situation would therefore seemto be a Slovakia either nominally independent or bound by even looser federalties than at present to Prague and dominated in either event by Germaninfluence.” 5)

The Prague crisis intensified to such an extent that the British Ambassador inBerlin, Henderson, recommended, on his own authority, to the Czech Envoy,Mastny, to have their Foreign Minister Chvalkowski come to Berlin.7)

“He [Hitler] acted only when events had already destroyed the settlementof Munich.” 8)

There had been no encouragement from Hitler to induce Poland to incorporatethe Olsa territory that included the town of Teschen, where part of the populationwas German. Further, he had not ordered provincial parliamentary elections inSlovakia and Carpatho-Ukraine and did not pre-determine their result. Thepopulation there had voted 98% and 92.4% respectively in favour of setting up anautonomous government and against centralism from Prague. Furthermore, nofault attaches to Hitler for the fact that for the Czechs, after the annexation ofAustria and the breaking away of Slovakia, there remained a frontier area of only50 kilometres bordering the outside world which, actually in this case, was a far

6) J. Colvin, Vansittart in Office, p. 289.7) N. Henderson, Failure of a Mission, p. 202.8) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 203.


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from friendly Poland. Hitler had not summoned the Slovak leader, Prof. Tuka, toBerlin. More accurately, he came on his own initiative on 12 February 1939because, in his opinion, “continued co-existence with the Czechs had becomeimpossible for the Slovaks”. He was laying the destiny of his people into “yourhands, my Führer (he addressed Hitler as ‘My Führer’); my people await theircomplete liberation by you” 9). In spite of the request for German protection,Hitler was still refusing, in this month before the crisis, to advocate an independentSlovak state.

“Hitler answers evasively. He wants on no account to tie himself down andhe fears that an official German intervention in favour of the Slovakians coulddo harm to the newly reached German-French agreement.

Hitler…merely assures that he will, if Slovakia should become indepen-dent, guarantee the independence that the people want.” 10)

The improper dissolving of the Ruthenian government on 6 March and theequally unconstitutional removal from office of the Slovakian Prime MinisterTiso and two of his staff, as well as the arrest of several Slovakian politicians andthe appointment of the Sidor government by the Prague powers-that-be, all tookplace on the 9 and 13 March without any help from Hitler.

“The Czech actions have taken everyone in Germany totally by surprise.Hitler is in Vienna attending the celebration of the anniversary of the Anschluss,Göring is on holiday in San Remo….

Hitler’s anger at the repeated provocation – for this is how he perceivesthe Czech conduct – knows no bounds. He immediately orders to prepare foran invasion of Czecho-Slovakia.” 10)

If Dr. Tiso, after these happenings in Slovakia, should be asking for a consul-tation with Hitler and if, subsequently, he should have the Slovak Diet declareunanimously the independence of the State,11) then the Reich Chancellor cannotbe held responsible for this development. Similarly, there is no ground for assumingthat Hitler had caused or requested the declaration of independence of the Carpatho-Ukrainian government on the 14 March 1939 or their appeal for protection to theReich.12)

Nor had Hitler advised, much less ordered, the Hungarians, even before theGerman occupation, as a trigger – so to speak – for further radical changes in that

9) ADAP, vol. IV, doc. 168.10) K. Zentner, Illustrierte Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges, p. 60.11) Monatshefte für auswärtige Politik 1939 (Monthly Journal of Foreign Policy) No. VI, p. 355 seq.12) ADAP, vol. IV, doc. 210.


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area (Poland was interested in Mährisch-Ostrau and had already early onconcentrated military reinforcement on the border),13) to invade Carpatho-Ukraine– on the 14 March 1939.14) Winston Churchill was to admit that the Hungariantroops advancing into the eastern province of Czecho-Slovakia (Carpatho-Russia)were secretly being supported by Poland – not Germany! – and that the PolishForeign Minister had stated publicly in Warsaw on 14 March 1939,

“that his Government had full sympathy with the aspirations of the Slovaks.”15)

The Polish government was the first to say openly that the dissolution ofCzecho-Slovakia was inevitable.16) In stark contrast to Hitler, Colonel Beck, wholiked to call Czecho-Slovakia a “temporary arrangement” and “a caricature of astate”, set to work after the Munich conference towards achieving the furtherdisintegration of this state, a common Polish-Hungarian frontier and the acquisitionof Slovakian areas of territory and of Czech industrial areas by resorting to“extremely strong … pressure”, “if necessary, by force.” 17) + 18)

“Even more so, Poland was of the opinion that Czecho-Slovakia had todisappear in the near future, and she was preparing herself to take a part of thelegacy. I for my part spoke with the Polish Ambassador in Paris, Lukasiewicz,on this very subject on 25 May 1938 and requested that he urge his governmentto put itself willingly on the side of the Great Powers that defended Czecho-Slovakia. Lukasiewicz answered that Czecho-Slovakia was a state arbitrarilycomposed of numerous minorities decidedly hostile towards one other, acountry condemned to death. To try, in spite of all, to preserve it would be agrave error on the part of France and Great Britain.” 19)

The Czech President Eduard Benes had already on 21 September 1938, in hisresponse to the British-French plan – not being aware of the constitutionalamendments towards federative alignment of Czecho-Slovakia that were to followlater – stressed:

13) ibid., doc. 189,190, 211.14) ibid., doc. 215, 217.15) W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. I, book I, “The Gathering Storm”, p. 267.16) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, vol. I, p. 285.17) Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945, vol. V, doc. 71, 74, 79, 87, 94.18) Opposing statements, based on information contained in the ADAP, have been exposed as

forgeries of the post-war period. See Nation Europa 5/1963 “Glatte Fälschungen” (Pure forgeries).19) G. Bonnet, Défense de la Paix. De Washington au Quai d’Orsay, p. 133 (German ed. p. 41).


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“In the opinion of the Government, acceptance of a proposal of this kindwould be tantamount to acquiescence in the complete mutilation of the Statein every respect; from an economic point of view and from that of transport,Czecho-Slovakia would be completely paralysed, and from the strategic pointof view she would find herself in an extremely difficult situation; and especially,she would sooner or later fall under the absolute influence of Germany.” 20)

No one can seriously maintain that all small states in Europe – here we arediscussing Hungary and Poland – had been “vassals of Hitler”. Winston Churchillwas also surprised at the Polish attitude which did not suit his plans:

“We see them [the Poles] hurrying, while the might of Germany gloweredup against them, to grasp their share of the pillage and ruin of Czecho-Slovakia.During the crisis the door was shut in the face of the British and FrenchAmbassadors, who were denied even access to the Foreign Secretary of thePolish State. It is a mystery and tragedy of European history that a peoplecapable of every heroic virtue, gifted, valiant, charming, as individuals, shouldrepeatedly show such inveterate faults in almost every aspect of theirgovernmental life. ...

The Hungarians had also been on the fringe of the Munich discussions.Horthy had visited Germany at the end of August, 1938, but Hitler had beenvery reserved in his attitude.” 21)

The Czech order of 23 September 1938, for general mobilization and theplanning – highly dangerous and menacing for Germany – on the part of the SovietUnion and France for a ‘mother-ship’ base, depositing war planes on Czechairfields, were not, on the whole, made inoperative after the Munich conference.22)

“No doubt they [the Czechs] are only a small democratic State, no doubtthey have an army only two or three times as large as ours, no doubt they havea munitions supply only three times as great as that of Italy...” 22a) + 21)

For Winston Churchill, this was but harmless number games. But for Germanyit was deadly reality. Even more so, as in every looming crisis situation Czecho-Slovakia and her military ally, the Soviet Union, plus France, would have formeda common front against Germany. The Soviet-Czechoslovak mutual assistance

20) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. II, doc. 986.21) W. Churchill, op. cit., pp. 253, 213.22) H.E. Barnes, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, p. 197 seq.22a) Winston Churchill, His Complete Speeches, vol. VI, p. 5926: Speech on 14 March 1938,

House of Commons.


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pact of 16 May 1935 was still in force. The Czech General Staff carried on workingtogether with the Red Army. The Skoda works continued supplying their armamentsmaterial mainly to the Soviet Union, who, as was generally known, was workingtowards creating a trouble-spot in Europe, so as to harvest from that scene amplefruit for her expansion into world revolution. While the USSR was already in aposition, by using Czech airbases, to move at short notice a considerable trooppotential into the German flanks, so Prague had since 1919 never consideredherself to be a European outpost against Asia, but rather the other way round as anoutpost of Asia against Europe.23) That power that had already been willing duringthe pre-war years to use armed force against Germany – the Soviet Union24) – hadclearly perceived the strategic position of the Czech territory for Germany andhad accommodated it to her strategy:

“As long as Czecho-Slovakia existed, the hands of Fascist Germany wouldbe tied. Germany could not do anything against Poland or France because thewell-armed and well-organized Czecho-Slovakian army was an adversary forGermany that was to be taken seriously.” 25)

All these elements mentioned here are useful for explaining, but not for“judging”, Hitler’s decision to occupy Bohemia and Moravia on 14 and 15 March1939 respectively and to transform this territory into a German protectorate. Everystate rests on its own evaluation appraisal and functions in accordance with therequisite necessities for its secure existence; that applies as much to the British,French and Soviet government as it does to the German government. To deny onprinciple that the Reich government is entitled to judge her own worth, an authoritywhich is derived from her right to existence and the demands of her people forsecurity would, effectively, mean that the judgment criteria – purely dictated byinternational interests – as used by the other countries, is elevated to a maxim. Butin this case, every accusation against the German government – that of a one-sided, biased evaluation – is bound to founder and so make a supranational, objectiveevaluation and, therefore, administration of justice, impossible. Nevertheless, thehistorian has an obligation to use precisely this kind of overriding, unbiased judgmentin an assessment. Only then it is possible to gain insights from history to benefit thefuture of mankind and to make international law binding for all.

The Czech general public was not about to appreciably change their viewsand combative methods with regard to the German contingents in Bohemia and

23) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. I, p. 426.24) Platanova, Pavlenko, Parotkina, “The Second World War” (Russian), p. 17.25) Vorobiev and Kravzov, “The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945” (Russian), p. 24.


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Moravia, but also as regards the Slovaks and the people from Carpatho-Ukraine,after the Munich conference.

The Foreign Minister of the Reich, von Ribbentrop, declared to the CzechForeign Minister, Chvalkowsky, on 21 January 1939 in Berlin,

“that the latest tendencies of Czecho-Slovakia, should they continue, wouldone day have catastrophic consequences. Chvalkowsky replied that the remarksof the Reich Foreign Minister altogether confirmed what he had been tellinghis government time and again.” 26)

Added to this are the effects of the geographical position. Even Czech politicianshad to admit that Czecho-Slovakia could not survive without her “naturalfrontiers”.27)

Hitler’s directives for the Wehrmacht dated 21 October 1938, and 17 December1938, to keep an eye on the eventuality for the “liquidation of the remainder of theCzech state …‘should it pursue an anti-German policy’”, were “ ‘measures ofprecaution, not plans for aggression’ ”.

“These directives have often been quoted as proof that Hitler was neversincere in accepting the Munich settlement. The truth is rather that Hitlerdoubted whether the settlement would work. Though often regarded aspolitically ignorant, he understood better than other European statesmen theproblem of Bohemia; and believed, without sinister intention, that independentCzecho-Slovakia could not survive, when deprived of her natural frontiersand with Czech prestige broken. This was not a wish for Czecho-Slovakia’sdestruction. It was a belief held also by Masaryk and Benes, when they createdCzecho-Slovakia in 1918; it was the principle on which Czecho-Slovakindependence had rested from first to last.” 28)

The groundless British change of course to start following in the wake of theUS President Roosevelt, onwards from the winter months of 1938/1939, and afterthat London’s efforts, starting, at the latest, in March 1939, to enlist the SovietUnion for the encirclement front against Germany, were making their effects feltin the Czech region too. But not until Hitler learned of the results of the Romevisit made by both Chamberlain and Halifax in January 1939, that is to say, was

26) IMT, vol. XXXI, p. 129, doc. 2795-PS.27) F.O. Miksche, Donauföderation, pp. 29, 34, quoted by: E. J. Reichenberger, Wider Willkür und

Machtrausch, p. 20; compare also: F.O. Miksche, Unconditional Surrender, p. 203.28) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 193.


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made aware of the diplomatic activities that were undertaken on a broad scaleagainst Germany, when he became mindful of the policy of stirring up rumours toplant in the public mind, when he was to find out about the British armament,about the forecast of a German-Polish break-up, the intimidation of Italy, thedisdain shown for the German attempts towards peace and of the rejection of thenew disarmament proposals – only then did he decide to support the Slovaksrather than the Czechs.

“In leader articles that were given a big spread in the British press theassertion was made that Hitler had broken his promise, made at the Sportpalastin Berlin on 26 September 1938, not to make any further territorial claims inEurope. It was declared that he had not kept his previously given word and,subsequently, he was no longer to be trusted. No mention was made, however,about Chamberlain going back on his word that he had given to Hitler on 30September 1938, with regard to the British-German friendship declaration,when he was informing Mussolini during the period of 11 and 14 January1939, that he was considering using military action against Hitler – weeksbefore Hitler took any steps against Czecho-Slovakia.” 29)

In spite of this British activity immediately after “Munich”, matters might stillhave developed differently, had not the Czechs continued oppressing their minoritiesin the accustomed manner as practised since 1919, and had the Poles not caused achange in conditions by delivering one ultimatum after another to Prague. The Slovaksdid not have the protection of the German troops imposed upon them, and becauseof that had forced their independence, but Tiso, the Prime Minister of the autonomousSlovakian government, was of the opinion that Slovak independence was only thenguaranteed, when the unwarranted territorial and political demands of the Poles,Hungarians and Czechs could be effectively opposed.

The “No” of the Polish government in reply to the German negotiation proposalsregarding Danzig and the Corridor through West Prussia also accelerated eventsin Czecho-Slovakia, if indeed it did not trigger them.30) The Polish “No” wasbecoming, from January, February and March of 1939 onwards, ever moredetermined, and it was accompanied by the combined actions of mobilization andof oppression of the German element – in the Olsa region already since October1938 – as well as ever more unrestrained journalistic endeavours.

The British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, declared on the morning of16 March 1939 in the House of Commons:

29) P.H. NicoIl, Britain’s Blunder (German edition), p. 66.30) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. I, p. 413.


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“With that [the breaking up of Czecho-Slovakia from the inside], a situationhas ceased to exist which His Majesty’s government has always regarded astemporary.” 31)

With that statement, Chamberlain confirmed that the British leadership also,since the Munich conference, had not rated the chances of a long life very high forthe remainder of the Czech State. There is no evidence for it that Hitler had preparedthis march on Prague with long-term and precise planning, which might possiblyhave warranted the British steps taken since October 1938. The Czech ForeignMinister Chvalkowsky stated in a document of 21 January 1939 that was acceptedby the Inter-allied Military Tribunal in Nuremberg 1945-1946

“that he [Hit1er] had strictly fulfilled the promise made on 14 October1938, although under very trying circumstances.” 32)

After all, it goes without saying, that this hotbed of unrest called Czecho-Slovakia in the year 1939 – without Hitler’s help – could easily have sparked offa war and in any case, that by re-arranging affairs in this way the shedding ofblood in the heartland of Europe, which might not have remained limited to localareas only, was averted.

There is plentiful evidence showing that the Czechoslovak state, especiallywhile continuing with their present policy, after the separation of the Sudetenlandwas, in the long term, no longer able to exist. President Benes told the French andthe British Ambassador on 19 September 1938:

“The Anglo-French plan of 19 September 1938 [cession of territories withmore than 50% German population] signifies the crippling of the state,economic paralysis, strategically the handing over to Germany and completesubjugation to Germany in the near future.” 33)

British and French documents, also recognized as genuine by the IMT, alsomake it clear:

“In Slovakia the long-anticipated crisis came on 10 March 1939.” 34)

Only after the dismissal of the Slovakian ministers, that is, after the Prague-triggered crisis, are there references appearing in those documents to a German

31) ibid., vol. II, p. 8.32) IMT, vol. VII, p. 237, doc. USSR-266.33) Frankfurter Allgemeine, 11 March 1959, p. 11.34) IMT, vol. III, p. 176, Mr. Aldermann.


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action – reaction, in this case, would be more appropriate – and not before. This,though, irrespective of the fact that the Slovak independence leader, Prof. Tuka,had already in February 1939 turned to Hitler with the appeal for the liberation ofhis country from Czech rule.

Winston Churchill stated after the re-integration of the Sudetenland intoGermany:

“I venture to think that in future the Czechoslovak State cannot bemaintained as an independent entity…

Perhaps they [Czecho-Slovakia] may join it [the Nazi regime] in despairor in revenge.” 35)

The territorial demands of Poland and Hungary and the efforts by the Slovaksand Carpatho-Ukrainians to attain independence marked the start of the realizationof the Churchill forecast. The state dissolved in such a way that NevilleChamberlain, on 14 March 1939, that is one whole day before the German marchon Prague, could state in the House of Commons that no unprovoked aggressionon Czecho-Slovakia had taken place by Germany.36)

“Chamberlain, as well as Sir John Simon, stated that the Slovakian andRuthenian independence movements, which they had no intention of weak-ening or suppressing, signalled the demise of the Czech state. Consequently,protection of the Czech borders had become unnecessary.” 37)

The British Ambassador in Berlin, Neville Henderson, who was in favour ofappeasement and, because of that, had been put under considerable pressure inBritain after the outbreak of war, wrote about this in his memoirs, published inLondon in 1941:

“Unfortunately the Czechs were incredibly short-sighted: they weredomineering in their treatment of the Slovaks, and the separatists among thelatter were no less blindly disloyal in their attitude towards the Czechs. It wasobvious that the controversy which had arisen between them was exposingboth equally to German influence, and during the week which preceded theoccupation of Prague I did my utmost to persuade the Czech Minister at Berlinto use all his influence with his Government to induce it to lose no time insettling its dispute with the Slovaks and in withdrawing its troops from

35) Winston Churchill, His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, vol. VI, p. 6008: Speech in House ofCommons, 5 October 1938; also Into Battle.

36) “German White Book” No. 2, doc. 257.37) P.H. Nicoll, op. cit. (German edition), p. 65.


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Bratislava before it was too late....My warnings to M. Mastny that his Government was playing Hitler’s game

for him and that its folly would end in disaster either fell on deaf ears or hehimself failed to impress Prague. The Czech Government persisted in itsobstinacy...” 38)

The Czech President, Dr. Hacha, travelled to Berlin on the 14 March 1939 –of his own free will and at his own request.

“The break away by Slovakia and Ruthenia was to lead to a grave crisis inPrague, and Sir Basil Newton, the British Envoy in Czecho-Slovakia, advisedPresident Hacha that it would be best to travel to Berlin to discuss the situationwith Hitler.” 39)

In any case, it was not Hitler who “brought things to a head”.40) With priorapproval from his Cabinet, Dr. Hacha set out for his journey to Berlin in order toavert chaos breaking out in Bohemia and Moravia, which was threatening to eruptunless the Reich government intervened, following the declaration of independenceby the Slovakian Diet on 14 March 1939. Dr. Hacha, who had been forbidden tomake the journey by air because of his heart trouble and had left Prague by specialtrain,41)

“ was received with full military honours due to a visiting head of state:The guard of honour was presenting arms at the station to the sound of theCzech and German national anthems ringing out. At the Reichskanzlei (ReichChancellery) the ‘Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’ (special body-guard for theFührer) stands to attention, the band of the ‘Leibstandarte’ is playing thePräsentiermarsch, while Dr. Hacha inspects the guard of honour.” 42)

Already on the way from the station to his quarters at the Hotel Adlon, Dr.Hacha was telling State Secretary Meissner ‘in excited tones’,

“that he had, in view of the now intolerable situation in his country, cometo the decision to ask the Führer and Chancellor of the Reich for help andprotection, and he was hoping that he might find him willing to establish acommon political ground.” 43)

38) N. Henderson, op. cit., p. 202.39) P.H. Nicoll, op. cit. (German edition), p. 63.40) “We were anxious to bring things to a head”: N. Chamberlain in a letter to his sister of 10

September 1939, quoted by K. Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, p. 416.41) ADAP, vol. IV, doc. 223.42) K. Zentner, op. cit., p. 61.43) O. Meißner, Staatssekretär unter Ebert, Hindenburg, Hitler, p. 476.


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There is no international principle which entitles foreign governments to screamblue murder when a freely elected and confirmed president, who is congratulatedby his predecessor, Eduard Benes,44) voluntarily transfers the sovereignty of hisstate to a superior power as his country is in a hopeless situation. Although muchtragedy and explosive material might be embodied in such an act as Dr. Hacha’s,so there are often varied factors that cannot be put down to the “malicious” intentionof one solitary man which make it necessary every now and then to have to takedecisions of this magnitude. Deserted by the minorities (even without the SudetenGermans there still remained 3.5 million people in a state of 7 million Czechs), aswell as by her big friends Britain, France and the USSR, threatened by Hungaryand Poland, economically without protection and militarily helpless, Prague wasno longer in control of the situation.

Dr. Hacha, until recently president of the administrative law court in Czecho-Slovakia, the highest in the land, was elected as President of the State not byHitler or his ‘odd-job-men’, but by the representatives of the Czech people. Thatfact ought to be kept well in mind when reviewing the protocols of the meetingbetween Hitler and Dr. Hacha of 14 March 1939 in Berlin, a documentauthenticated by the IMT. Typical for the historical analysis of this document isthe fact that Dr. Hacha’s introductory monologue, which was given without anypressure, with no interruption, without any prior knowledge of Hitler’s plans atthe beginning of the discussion with Hitler, is mostly only published in excerpts.The British “Documents on International Affairs” verify:

“ By accepting it [the post of President] the most difficult task of his lifehad fallen on him, and, therefore, he had dared to ask the Führer to receivehim.

He was convinced that the fate of Czecho-Slovakia lay in the hands of theFührer, and he believed that her fate was safe in the Führer’s hands. He had nogrounds for complaint over what had happened in Slovakia recently. He hadbeen convinced for a long time that it was impossible for the various peoplesto live together in this one body politic. Although their languages resembledeach other to a considerable extent, they had developed along very differentlines. Czecho-Slovakia was more closely related to Germany than to Slovakia,which showed a stronger inclination towards the Magyars. The Czechs hadmaintained relations only with the Protestant Slovaks, while the CatholicSlovaks had been rejected by the Czechs… He was not alone with this view,but was sure that eighty per cent of the population shared it with him...” 45)

44) E. Benes, Memoirs, pp. 53, 96-97.45) Documents on International Affairs 1939-1946, vol. I, pp. 50-51.


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For instance, the editors of the “Documents on International Affairs” “forgot”to print the following passage of the speech:

“For a long time he had wanted to make the acquaintance of the man whosewonderful ideas he had often read about and followed with interest...”46)

They did, however, manage to leave in:

“Moreover, the whole regime [Masaryk-Benes] was alien to him, so alienthat immediately after the change of regime he had asked himself whether itwas fortunate for Czecho-Slovakia to be an independent state at all….

Those were the reasons why they had never been able to arrive at asatisfactory understanding, and he was glad that developments had taken thiscourse…

He thought that the Führer’s experience with the Slovaks would be nonetoo good...

Besides, he was not shedding any tears over Slovakia.” 46)

That Dr. Hacha was not alone in his opinion is proven bya) his election; because this opinion of his had not just now taken shape while

in Berlin “under the influence of drugs”. It is remarkable that Krulis Randa, alsoa candidate in the presidential election, was to be of the same opinion as Dr.Hacha; 47)

b) his request for talks in Berlin with an already preconceived objective inmind, by his radio speech on the previous day (14 March) in which he had beenannouncing further internal reforms with clarifying comments and by hisunimpeded departure from Prague with his Foreign Minister;

c) the telephone discussion with the Cabinet members in Prague immediatelybefore signing the agreement with Hitler and the transmitted consent from Prague;

d) the complete absence of Czech resistance to the entry of German forces, inspite of the army mobilized and their considerable stocks of weaponry.

Dr. Hacha’s decision to agree to the transformation of his state into a Germanprotectorate was significantly influenced – quite apart from the purely internalstrife – by an advancing Hungarian army that was, on the eve of 14 March, takingover and high-handedly claiming a border strip, but also the fact that a lightningattack by Poland was feared.

46) IMT, vol. XXXI, p. 140, doc. 2798. PS.47) “German White Book” No. 3 – Polish Documents Relative to the Origin of the War, doc. 3, –

Letter from the Voivode, Dr. Grazynski, to the Polish Minister for Foreign Affairs in Warsaw, 2November 1938, about a conversation with M. Krulis Randa, one of the “most prominent Czechindustrialists”.


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These internal and external political connections, which were giving out obvioussignals already at the time of the Munich conference that changes – quite specificchanges – were becoming apparent for the coming months and years ahead, werethe sole reason why at Munich there was not made any guarantee for thepreservation of the remainder of the Czech State, although originally this hadbeen on the agenda. This international guarantee was to have been made dependenton the Czech’s government ability to satisfy the demands of the remainingminorities.

“We had no treaty obligations to Czecho-Slovakia. We had never guar-anteed their security.” 48)

The fact, that after the Munich conference, the Hungarian government, as wellas Dr. Tiso for the Slovaks and Dr. Hacha for the Czechs, had consulted Hitler andMussolini rather than the four Great Powers of Munich, in order to have theHungarian territorial claims adjudicated by an impartial arbiter, cannot be laid toHitler’s charge. During the negotiations, resulting in the “Vienna arbitration award”of 2 November 1938, Germany was lending her decisive support to the Czechs,which is all the more remarkable as the Czechs had been living for two full decades– in fact, right up to the time of the recent arrangement – at daggers drawn withthe Reich, while the Reich, on the other hand, was allied in friendship to Hungary.Furthermore is this Vienna arbitral award additional proof that Hitler had notbeen making long-term plans, or that he had “intended” anyway, to smash oreliminate Czecho-Slovakia. If that had been the objective, then there would nothave been a more favourable opportunity as when he was presented with thisrequest at the conference in Vienna.

That Hitler, in view of Dr. Hacha’s deliberate Berlin visit, intervened activelyin these changes that were taking place in the Czech sphere, one may findregrettable. To pass judgment on this in the name of humanitarianism, of peaceand in the name of a generally binding system of values arising from occidentalethics, could prove extremely difficult. Those Powers, however, who consideredit appropriate to compel 3.5 million Germans against their will to have to livewithin a state of 7 million Czechs, and who themselves had appropriated, withvarying degrees of violence, colonial territories and protectorates all over theworld with the intention of keeping them forever, are then most emphatically notin a position to protest, when later on the Czech government felt induced to endorsethe policy of becoming integrated into a state federation with 75 million Germans,

48) Winston Churchill, His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, vol. VI, p. 6141: Speech on 28 June1939 at the City Carlton Club, London; also Into Battle.


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while retaining their autonomy. If Hitler had remained inactive, then his passivitywould have made a peaceable impression, but the results would probably haveproved disastrous for peace in this area and for the security of the Reich, becauseother powers would have exploited these changes and, without question, wouldhave increased the belligerent atmosphere in Europe – in fact, against the intentionof the Czech government.

The Czech national identity was not in any way demeaned by the Reich andcultural autonomy and economic prosperity throughout the war was ensured, noCzech was conscripted for military service, and the entry and settlement in Bohemiarequired a special permit. Thus did Hitler “violate” a country that had been part ofthe Reich for 1,000 years, where in the centre was to be found the oldest and oneof the most outstanding German universities, yes, whose capital city Prague hadbeen, for more than fifty years during the Middle Ages, the capital of the Reich.What the Czechs had never granted the Sudeten Germans – autonomy, being incharge of their own national, cultural and economic life and exemption frommilitary service – this was offered by Hitler to the protectorate.

Those who find it difficult to deliberate in a European context when consid-ering Czecho-Slovakia, who might believe that it matters not whether in thisinstance all historical connections and developments are disregarded, those whoimpute all and everything to brutal, imperialistic power politics of the GermanReich and of the German men and women and who are fossilized in the short-sighted dogmatics of Versailles (Czecho-Slovakia, as is known, not having existedbefore), ought to make a comparison with the happenings in Hungary in October/November 1956. Perhaps, belatedly, it will then become more evident and will beappreciated more fully what it means to master a situation, badly managed byothers, without the shedding of blood.

“It would be instructive to compare Hitler’s generous policies of 1939with the manner in which the Czechs acted when their country was handedback to them after the defeat of Hitler. Their barbaric actions against theGermans were worse than those of the Russian conquerors. When driving theGermans from the country, the Lidice tragedy was repeated a hundred timesover. In many cases the terrified Germans threw themselves at the mercy ofthe Russians, hoping for protection from murderous Czech mobs. The Czechseven murdered their own statesmen of the year 1939, who had done their bestto serve the country bravely and loyally. Chvalkowsky was shot without anyfurther ado, and Hacha died in prison as the result of terrible torture and othermaltreatment.”49)

49) P.H. Nicoll, op. cit. (German edition), pp. 65-67.


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“It has to be emphasized that Hitler did not annex Bohemia and Moravia.He only established a protectorate, where a large degree of autonomy wasretained by the people living in that area, especially in all internal localaffairs.” 49) + 49a)

“No one who values honest history can pretend that Hitler was an aggressorwho, by brute force, seized that Republic. The two parts of the distracted andfeud-riven state both begged Hitler for protection, one against the other. Youcannot have protection without a protector…

The Czechs were not so keen, perhaps, as the Slovaks for Hitler’s protectionbut their President’s decision was final and there never has emerged any proofthat it was in any way a forced one, as Hitler’s enemies aver; moreover, notone hand was raised, not one gun fired against the so-called aggressor andinvader. Does that not seem strange in a people who were attacked andsubjected? Not one appeal was made to any other greater power for help againstthe German enemy. Does that suggest an enemy at all?” 49a)

Britain never did venture to attempt, while evoking the right of self-determination, to put Danzig on a par with Prague, i.e. to propose to Hitler that hewould get Danzig because it is German, and in return for that he has to give backBohemia and Moravia because it is Czech. Such a conjoined operation wouldundoubtedly have required Great Britain having to enforce a new government forthe Czechs, since the former legitimate Czech government had given their consentto the revised version of 15 March 1939. But if we disregard this inevitable andsuperficial intervention into the Czech right of self-determination, an attempt suchas this would have considerably enhanced Britain’s moral reputation. Londonwould thus have demonstrated that it associates fidelity to a principle with aconstructively peaceable foreign policy.

In April 1939 the Rumanian Foreign Minister, Gafencu, continuing on toLondon after first visiting Berlin, hinted to Lord Halifax that such a proposalfrom Britain might not necessarily have to meet with resistance in Berlin. ButHalifax did not react to that.50) Obviously, Britain was showing as little interest inthe Czech question now as she did after the Munich conference from October1938 onwards, or rather, she was interested only insofar Hitler’s march to Praguecould be utilized for war propaganda. Since Great Britain, in her propaganda, inher later decision for war and the extension of the war, was referring to this case“Prague” with emphatic regularity, it seems likely that the second alternative wouldexpress the British attitude more accurately. The British government preferred to

49a) P.H. Nicoll, op. cit., pp. 17-18.50) Documents on British Foreign PoIicy 1919-1939, vol. V, doc. 278, 279, 285.


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spotlight the catch-phrase of the “violated” Czechs so as to increase their coalitioncontingent against Hitler, rather than make the constructive endeavour to re-establish Czech independence.

The British Ambassador in Berlin, Henderson, tried once more, on 16 August1939, in a letter to Mr. Strang, head of the Foreign Office’s central department, togenerate an action in connection with this question:

“Hitler’s remark that the Protectorate is a necessity for the moment[Henderson’s emphasis] may be worth remembering. I have some reason tobelieve that he is not satisfied with the solution of March 15 and realises thathe made a mistake. Bohemia might in the end be a question of a formula, asthe head of the S.A. said to me. It could be anything, so long as it is notreconverted into ‘a bastion against Germany’ and a bridgehead for an attackon Germany.”51)

But the British government did not react to this.

51) ibid., vol. VII, doc. 37.


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Poland Wants War German Territories in Polish Hands

After the First World War, the “Right of Self-Determination of Nations” wasto inaugurate an era of peace, as a new principle of international law. Accordingly,the U.S. American President W. Wilson tried to draw the borders in Eastern Europealong ethnographic settlement lines, respecting the principle of majority. Althoughwanting to secure access to the Baltic Sea for Poland, his understanding of theterm, however, was to declare the Vistula (Weichsel) international and Danzig asa free port.1) But Poland was not going to wait for the outcome of the VersaillesPeace conference that was stretching over many months and, instead, used thearmistice of Germany to occupy the Posen region and parts of western Prussia.

Wilson, who evidently had no understanding of the political and historicalsituation of Eastern Europe,2) would be hoodwinked, in the end, not only by thethree leading Polish agitators Sosnowski, Dmowski and Paderewski, but also by theFrench, who were using falsified maps and faked statistics, as well as drawingattention to the Polish electoral votes in the U.S.A.3) The Versailles Peace conferenceaccepted from Poland the fait accompli, with the stipulation, however, that the transferof territory was made dependent on the Polish obligation of having to guarantee tothe German and Jewish minorities far-reaching independence and the preservationof their national culture and traditional way of life. Irrespective of the Versaillesborder ruling, the Poles still occupied the eastern bank of the Vistula as well as otherdistricts of West Prussia, thus denying all German access to this river.

France, that was to occupy a dominant position in European politics after theFirst World War and was to favour an eastern buffer against Germany “for securityreasons”,4) was lending her support to the Polish rebels’ campaigns of terror againstthe population in eastern Upper Silesia, as well as to the manipulations ofconstituencies taking place. Ultimately, this rich industrial area was made over toPoland, despite the German winning result of the plebiscite in 1921. In this wayPoland acquired wrongfully a German territory of 46,150 square kilometres thatwas populated in the majority by Germans. That Versailles “peace treaty”, whichwas “another way of continuing the war”,5) “a potential declaration of war” that

1)W. Recke, Die polnische Frage als Problem der europäischen Politik, pp. 286, 314-315.2) H.G. Dahms, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, p. 19, and W. Recke, ibid., p. 286.3) W. Recke, ibid., pp. 291-354.4) S. Horak, Poland and her National Minorities 1919-1939, p. 36.5) F. Nitti, La Tragedia dell’Europa – che farà America? p. 17: statement of Georges Clemenceau,

French Prime Minister and president of the Versailles Peace conference.


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could “become an even greater evil for the whole world than the war itself”,6) gavemore to Poland than was deserved and much more than she should have claimed.Not only historians from abroad but statesmen of that period, yes, even Polishpoliticians, did not grow tired of pointing to the injustice hereby created and tothe seedling of a new war hereby planted.

Marshal Pilsudski’s famous remark:

“So you are lusting after Upper Silesia? But really Upper Silesia is an age-old Prussian colony!” 7)

Indeed they were desirous of Upper Silesia. Many years of groundwork hadbeen put in by Polish agitators in Britain and in the U.S.A. – here with moresuccess. Thus Sosnowski, in a letter to President Wilson dated 7 April 1917, wasdemanding Upper Silesia on the grounds that it was especially the coal and cokeindustry that was mining that area, with all the related by-products, which hadcreated the power base of Prussian militarism and that this threat needed to beeliminated.8) That there was the additional request in that programme for thedestruction of Prussia, the dismemberment of Germany and the “restitution of thecoastal territories stolen from Poland” (pronounced East Prussia), should bementioned in passing.8) Underlying Dmowski’s agitating was the belief that “onlya total remodelling of the European structure of states” could restore the balance“which has been destroyed by German expansionism”, and that Poland wouldhave to become the focus of the non-German Central Europe. The prerequisitewas for Poland to be economically and politically strong, and that reason madeher possession of Upper Silesia, among other things, a necessity.9) Those same“statesmen”, who had described the partitioning of their country (by far the largestpart went to Russia) as one of the biggest criminal acts in the history of the world,but who in turn were elevating just such dividing-up and destruction of theirneighbour state (Germany) into one of the most important principles of theirgoverning system, were now the new masters of Poland. It goes without sayingthat they knew, as well as Pilsudski, who publicly stated it on 5 February 1919,that the “western borders of Poland were a gift of the coalition”,10) but this

6) H. Lutz, Verbrechervolk im Herzen Europas? pp. 94, 53: statement of General Smuts, PrimeMinister of the Union of South Africa.

7) F. Heiß, Deutschland und der Korridor, p. 122.8) W. Recke, op. cit., pp. 291-292.9) ibid., p. 299, and B. de Colonna, Poland from the Inside, p. 156. The British Labour Party held

several demonstrations outside the Polish embassy in London in protest of this policy.10) H. Roos, Polen und Europa, p. 4, quotes Wasilewski: “Joseph Pilsudski as I knew him”, Warsaw

1935, pp. 171-172: Comment to his former adviser on Eastern problems, Leon Wasilewski.


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knowledge was never to be reflected in their policies.

Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, during the Paris negotiations:

“I tell you once more, we would never have thought of giving to Poland aprovince that had not been Polish for the last 900 years…

The proposal of the Polish Commission that we should place 2,100,000Germans under the control of a people which is of a different religion andwhich has never proved its capacity for stable self-government throughout itshistory, must, in my judgment, lead sooner or later to a new war in the East ofEurope...” 11)

“France is not so much concerned with what is important to Poland, ratherthe French position is determined solely by the aim of weakening Germany.”12)

“To surround Germany with small states, many of which are composed ofpeoples that have never governed themselves and that comprise large numbers ofGermans who are demanding reunion with their homeland, such plans would be,it seems to me, a breeding ground for the most terrible reason for a future war.” 13)

“I was as sincere an advocate of Polish independence as any member ofthe Commission, but I was convinced that to add to Poland populations whichwould be an alien and hostile element inside its boundaries would be a sourceof permanent weakness and danger and not of strength to this resurrected State.I knew that a time would come when Germany would respond to the cry of itsexiled people and restore them to the Fatherland by force of arms.

For that reason I renewed my pressure in the conference to reject therecommendations which incorporated in Poland towns and territories whichwere overwhelmingly German by language, race and inclination...” 14)

Woodrow Wilson’s words of 7 April 1919 also went unheeded:

“France’s only real interest in Poland was to weaken Germany by givingthe Poles areas to which they had no claim.” 15)

U.S. Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, remarked on 8 May 1919:

“Do examine the treaty and you will find that whole populations, againsttheir will, were delivered into the power of those who hated them, while theireconomic resources were snatched away and handed over to others. The result

11) Seraphim, Maurach, Wolfrum, Ostwärts von Oder und Neiße, p. 39.12) C. Höltje, Die Weimarer Republik und das Ostlocarno-Problem 1919-1934, p. 10.13) F. Grimm, Frankreich und der Korridor, p. 34.14) L.L. Gerson, Woodrow Wilson and the Rebirth of Poland 1914-1920, p. 128.15) F. Grimm, op. cit., p. 37, and W. Recke, op. cit., p. 344, and B. de Colonna, op. cit., p. 90, and

R.S. Baker, Woodrow Wilson and World-Settlement, vol. II, p. 60.


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of such directives has to be hatred and bitterness, if not despair. It may takeyears until these oppressed nations are able to shake off the yoke, but as sureas night follows day, the time will come when they will try to break free.

We have a peace-treaty, but it will not bring lasting peace, as it was foundedon the quicksand of selfishness.” 16)

The former British Ambassador in Berlin, D’Abernon, on 23 January 1926:

“The Polish Corridor remains the great powder keg of Europe!” 16)

Even the Soviet press supported at that time the German demands for arevision.16)

The French Professor of Slavonic studies, René Martel, in 1929:

“Amongst the thorny questions that have troubled us since the war, none isas regrettable and terrible as that of the eastern borders of Germany. There isnot one person nowadays that does not know this truth.” 17)

Not a single one of the many Weimar cabinets, not one single German politicianof any party had recognized this border ruling. On the contrary, all parties andgovernments of the Weimar Republic demanded a revision of the eastern frontiersand were unanimous in rejecting an “Eastern Locarno”.

Reich Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann might be speaking for all of them:“One of my most important tasks is the rectification of the eastern borders: therecovery of Danzig, the Po1ish Corridor and the re-adjustment of the border inUpper Silesia.” 18)

“That we do not recognize the eastern borders is a fact I had once expressedin a public speech to the foreign affairs committee, much to the chagrin of thePolish government, when I stated that no German government, from the GermanNationalists to the Communists, would ever accept these borders laid downby the Versailles Treaty.” 19)

In a memorandum of 1925:

“The creation of a state whose political borders encompass all Germanelements who are living inside the enclosed German settlement areas in Central

16) C. Höltje, op. cit., p. 162, 164, 161.17) R. Martel, Deutschlands blutende Grenzen, p. 9.18) H. Bernhard, Gustav Stresemann, Vermächtnis-Nachlaß, vol. II, p. 546-547: Stresemann in a

letter of 7 September 1925 to the German Crown Prince.19) ibid., pp. 233-236, 248.


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Europe and who want union with the Reich, is the distant object of Germanhopes; the step-by-step revision of the politically and economically untenableborder settings imposed by the Peace Diktat (Polish Corridor and EasternUpper Silesia), is the next clear objective of German foreign politics.”20)

From the German reply, dated 11 July 1930, to the French proposal for theestablishment of a European federal and security ruling:

“No other country experiences the shortcomings of the European structuremore keenly than Germany, which, being situated in the middle of the continent,is particularly badly affected by these deficiencies and repercussions. Therefore,the German government is willing to participate in the League of Nations soas to work for the removal of these flaws. But the ultimate aim of theseendeavours would necessarily mean, in a spirit of understanding, to focus onboldly reforming the acknowledged as untenable circumstances, and so effecta true appeasement of Europe, one which can be founded only on the principlesof justness and equality.” 21)

Prime Minister Otto Braun (SPD) in Königsberg, November 1930:

“I do not contest Poland’s need of access to the sea, but just as such accesshas been secured for the new Czech state using the Elbe and Hamburg, itcould have been opened for Poland using the Vistula and Danzig withoutseparating East Prussia from the mother country, as well as placing hundredsof thousands of our fellow Germans, without asking their opinion, under foreignsovereignty, where they now live in a climate of terror, or are even forced outof their land. This injustice never could be or would be accepted by Germanyas being justified.” 21)

“The Labour Speakers’ Handbook” (1922/1923) remarks under the heading“Poland”:

“Nearly all West Prussia has been annexed to Poland, although two thirdsof the people are German and all the civilization of the country has been dueto Germany. A plebiscite was not allowed; if it had been, it would have goneoverwhelmingly in favour of Germany.... The whole of the province of Posenhas been annexed to Poland, although in the Western part there is a Germanmajority.... The policy of Labour is to rectify these unjust territorialarrangements…” 22)

20) C. Höltje, op. cit., p. 10321) ibid., pp. 209, 193.22) B. de Colonna, op. cit., p. 92.


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A Catholic German encyclopaedia in the year 1931:

“The creation of the Corridor took place, despite the fact that in the pastthe land had never been historically linked to Poland and was not ‘inhabitedby an indisputably Polish population’, as Wilson’s formula would have required.From a strictly political point of view of power-politics, it is a punitive measureaimed at weakening Germany and, at the same time, from a military standpoint,it would create a flank position for East Prussia, whose acquisition has beenopenly demanded by leading Polish politicians [Dmowski, Grabski, Srokowski]since 1918 as the last goal to be achieved.

By comparison, the necessity of a free and secure outlet to the sea wasonly a pretext, since that economic need... could have been satisfied byneutralizing the lower reaches of the Vistula, creating a free port at Danzigand granting Poland privileged use of the railway lines leading to the sea.Switzerland, Luxembourg, Hungary and Czecho-Slovakia all stand to provethat neither the existence nor the sovereignty of a state depends on thepossession of territorial access to the sea....

Indeed, the Polish Corridor is creating a state of unrest and insecurity inpolitical and economic terms simply by being there and is preventing the fruitfulco-operation, in the interest of both nations, of Germany with Poland.

The speedy elimination of the Corridor is an essential factor for theappeasement of the whole of Europe.” 23)

Winston Churchill was no less astute in identifying the legal position in Posen-West Prussia and, in the interests of peace, was demanding a rearrangement. Inthe House of Commons on 24 November 1932:

“If the British government is really interested in promoting peace, then thegovernment should assume the lead and re-open the question of Danzig andthe Corridor, while the victorious states are still superior. If these questionsare not solved, then there is no hope of a lasting peace.” 24)

Chamberlain’s biographer, Keith Feiling:

“...to adjust this defiance of history and reason” [the Danzig-Corridorproblem], said Churchill in 1933, “must be ‘one of the greatest practicalobjectives of European peace-seeking diplomacy’.” 25)

Carl J. Burckhardt, High Commissioner of the League of Nations in Danzig,

23) Staatslexikon, Herder-Verlag, Freiburg 1931, 5th edition, vol. IV, p. 321.24) H. Grimm, Warum – Woher – Aber Wohin? p. 246.25) K. Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, p. 247.


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informed on 21 May 1938 the German government representatives that a fewdays earlier ‘Lord Halifax had termed Danzig and the Corridor an absurdity’, andprobably the most foolish provision of the Versailles settlement.26)

A few days later, on the 26 May 1938, the French Ambassador in Berlin, RobertCoulondre, in a talk with his Polish colleague in Moscow, Count Grzybowski,stressed the following:

“Do you not believe that the Polish Corridor has created an anomalous ifnot artificial situation in Eastern Europe? If you have any doubts, then listento what foreigners who have been through the Corridor have to say about it.”27)

How much the drawing-up of the border at Versailles had destroyed theinternational moral code was made clear by the British historian, Russell Grenfell:

“First of all, was there anything essentially wicked in Hitler’s desire toretake the Polish Corridor? [This reclaiming was not even on the agenda beforethe war – the author] If there was, the wickedness was no greater than France’srelentless ambition from 1870 to 1918 to recover Alsace and Lorraine. Alsaceand Lorraine were much more German than French, although before 1870they had been part of France for 220 and 100 years respectively. But, in thesame way, the Polish Corridor had been German territory for the best part of acentury and a half; it contained many Germans as well as Poles, and its reversionto the recreated Poland in 1919 separated East Prussia from the rest of Germanyand involved the isolation and semi-ruin of the important and wholly Germancity of Danzig. Germany obviously had as good a claim to the Corridor asFrance had to Alsace and Lorraine. And since the victors at Versailles, whoincluded both the British and the French, had recognized this right of priorpossession in France’s favour in regard to the two provinces, their charge ofcriminal aggression against Germany – and certain German individuals – forapplying the same type of claim to the Polish Corridor was plainlyhypocritical.”28)

In the case of Alsace-Lorraine it is a question, furthermore, of a peripheralzone with a border only half the length of the East German one. The frontiers inEastern Germany were not only arbitrarily and forcibly shifted in a westwardlydirection, but their length thereby became grotesquely stretched, so that a part ofGermany (East Prussia) was detached from the rest of the Reich. Germany lostthere one tenth of her ground. A tightly knit together settlement area, bonded

26) D. Hoggan, The Forced War, p. 111.27) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, vol. I, p. 62.28) R. Grenfell, Unconditional Hatred, pp. 85-86 (NY, June 1958).


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through economical and cultural ties, was torn apart. The former HighCommissioner of the League in Danzig was to write about this in 1960:

“Rightly so did the French Ambassador in Berlin, Coulondre, record in hismemoirs that the German people had come to terms with the return of Alsaceto France, but that they were unable to accept the mutilation of their easternterritories. On this point and also at the same time in the military clauses the‘diktat’ must be felt all the more painful, since it would be seen more as theresult of a betrayal than of a defeat. In the whole course of events it seems tohave been forgotten that there was in existence a Danzig population (comprising96% Germans and only 4% Poles), who, against all principles, were at thedisposal of all.” 29)

The men, Roman Dmowski amongst them, who had carried through theirforcible annexations – although not all of them – after a lengthy period of hystericalagitation, chose as their basis for the Polish statehood, of all things, the highlyimaginative, constructive and peace-promoting “dogmatic enmity towardsGermany”.30) In this they were in total unison with the Polish military and thePolish public, who were not able to detach themselves from this stance until 1939.

All reasonable men of Western Europe have recognized and acknowledgedthe injustices in connection with the Corridor, although this had no influence onthe politics of these Powers and of the League of Nations. Not without reason hadthe United States refused to ratify the Versailles treaty and to participate in theLeague. This, though, did not stop the future President, F. D. Roosevelt, duringthe years 1937-1939, from laying aside his principles in order to radically changecourse and to refer to this injustice perpetrated in Eastern Europe as a valid “legalstatus”. This was equally as irresponsible and careless, as when, for instance, theCommunists maintain that

“the national minorities had proved themselves to be breeding grounds forinternational conflicts, and that the upholding of the principle of the right ofthe cultural-racial groups (Volksgruppen) – independent of Hitlerite inspiration– was given as a justification for an aggressive attitude.” 31)

29) C.J. Burckhardt, Meine Danziger Mission 1937-1939, pp. 25-26, and B. de Colonna, op. cit.,p. 110 seq., lists further numerous foreign voices.

30) R. Breyer, Das Deutsche Reich und Polen 1932-1937, p. 108.31) R. Goguel, Polen, Deutschland und die Oder-Neiße Linie, p. 411.


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The victors in Versailles had forcibly torn territories from Germany, had, inthe name of “international law”, vilified this nation’s wish for unification as“aggressive”, had falsified history in the sense of a “German guilt” that could beutilized for political purposes, and they were ignoring all the compulsory measuresused for liquidating the isolated cultural minority groups. This “stop-the-thief-method” has made the victors of Versailles and their co-victors socially acceptableon the international scene. Even today, they are still practising it with the sameintensity and effect. This has nothing to do, however, with the will and determinationfor installing justice and peace.

Poland Demands Territories outside Poland

Even the acquisition of the “Corridor” and Eastern Upper Silesia did not satisfyPoland, and this attitude had the reproach of imperialism directed at Poland in1919 already by the Chief Powers of Versailles.1)

“These historians regarded as a temporary solution the Polish State, thatwas born in 1918 from the concurrent collapse of the three partitioning Powers.They included in their ‘historic Poland’ large areas to the west and east that layoutside the existing borders.” 2)

The Polish concept of a state would consider territorial expansion to the westas vital, because it would increase the availability of raw materials and thus securefor Poland the status of a leading European power. The Polish claims after 1918knew no bounds. They included East Prussia, Danzig, Upper Silesia, parts of MidSilesia and the “Oder territories”. These highly imaginative ambitions had alreadyassumed a political character in numerous statements of the political agitatorsSosnowski, Dmowski and Paderewski, or rather in the statements of the PolishNational Committee, founded in Paris in 1917, and in the writings of the Polishpeace delegation in Versailles, whose main representatives were Dmowski andPaderewski.

While the followers of Dmowski’s policies were already at the beginning ofthe First World War making demands, during a lecture talk in Moscow, that Polandtake possession of East Prussia, of Posen-West Prussia, of Upper Silesia and twodistricts of the county of Breslau,3) so Dmowski was demanding, in a treatise from

1) E. Viefhaus, Die Minderheitenfrage und die Entstehung der Minderheitenschutzverträge aufder Pariser Friedenskonferenz 1919, p. 200.

2) H. Laeuen, Polnische Tragödie, p. 11 (this refers to the Polish historians).3) W. Recke, Die polnische Frage als Problem der europäischen Politik, p. 296.


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July 1917, the annexation of Upper Silesia*), a small part of Mid Silesia, theprovince of Posen*), West Prussia*) and the districts of Lauenburg and Bütow inthe province of Pomerellen and East Prussia.4) In his memorandum he put a choiceof two possibilities to the western politicians:

“On the one hand, the future of 2 million Germans in East Prussia shall besecured at the expense of 25-30 million Poles. Among those 2 million, aconsiderable number would be German by language only; many of them wouldstill remember that they are of Polish or Lithuanian origin, and often theywould have a hostile attitude towards the Germans.

On the other hand, the second possibility would be for Poland to establishher State within the proposed borders. ‘In that way the (above mentioned)Germanized strip of land will be cut off from Germany, will quickly bedeveloped economically and, at the same time, will be opened up to Polishinfluence and to Polish immigration. It is not difficult to decide which of thetwo solutions is the more humane and more in accord with justice’.” 4)

What in the name of this “justice” was to happen to the East Prussian populationwas clearly articulated in the Polish “specialists’ memorandum” of March 1919,which was presented to the Peace conference:

“The territorial isolation of East Prussia, this seat of Prussian militarism, isnecessary for a lasting peace, and this must result in a voluntary and continuousde-Germanization of this important strategic area, from whence the Prussiandynasty has set off to conquer the world.” 5)

Dmowski also found arguments for requesting the incorporation of Danziginto this new Poland, since he had falsified totally the history of this German city:

“The Danzig of today is German; but under normal conditions, that is, withthe requirements of a natural economic development, it will inevitably becomea Polish city.” 6)

Dmowski expressed himself still more clearly in the previously quotedmemorandum of March 1919:

“The Germanization of Danzig is superficial and, as soon as the Poleshave the right to settle there, the city will once again become Polish (redeviendra

*) Apart from a small area in the south west or rather in the west.4) W. Recke. op. cit, p. 300.5) W. Recke, ibid., p. 328.6) R. Dmowski, Polityka Polska, Pol. p. 491.


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polonaise), just like Krakow and other cities in Poland which at a certain erahave had a German majority...” 7)

Up to the middle of 1918, the Polish ambitions were met everywhere onlywith resistance and shaking of the head. Dmowski himself wrote:

“In Western Europe, not only amongst politicians, but also among men ofscience, geographers, statisticians, was the idea that the coastline of the BalticSea up to the mouth of the Niemen was German and could only be German soentrenched that when I began to talk about our territorial claims to the Balticcoast, they started rubbing their eyes, looking at me as if I were half mad. Thiswent on for about three years.

It is difficult for people to get rid of deep-seated ways of thinking. Still inthe spring of 1918, a high-ranking French diplomat, who had devoted muchtime to the Polish question, told me:

‘But it would truly be a miracle, Sir, if things were to happen as you say andyour state reached up to the Baltic!’

‘Perhaps it would be a miracle,’ I replied, ‘but the miracle must happen, ifboth your country, as well as we Poles, want to exist as an independent nation…’

We have obtained that piece of coastline only because the war lasted solong, allowing us time to create favourable conditions, and especially to spreadprecise information about the true state of affairs in Pomerania.” 8)

It was not clear to President Wilson – as indeed many arguments of the Poleswere not clear to him – why Poland and France, within the framework of theLeague of Nations, should be the “acting executive body” with regard to Germany.9)

Yet none of this stopped Dmowski’s memorandum of 8 October 1918 not onlyfrom being presented to the US President as well as to the Versailles Peaceconference, but also from being seriously discussed – although according to theseproposals, this new Poland could not even produce 50% of inhabitants of Polishorigin.10) In this memorandum East Prussia was described as “conditions therebeing positively medieval”, where “the peasant masses were kept in near-slaveryand were brought up in the spirit of servitude”. If “social and political progress”were to be introduced there, then, according to Dmowski – and this report of hiswas submitted in the name of the Polish National Committee! – East Prussia hadto go to Poland.11)

7) W. Recke, op. cit., p. 327. 8) R. Dmowski op. cit. p., 200. 9) W. Recke, op. cit., p. 314.10) P. Roth, Die Entstehung des polnischen Staates, p. 44.11) W. Recke, op. cit., pp. 318-319.


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The reference to the prospective votes of 4 million Polish-Americans did therest for Wilson,12) although the Poles had not yet managed to make all their Westernpartners see things their way.

“… Yet the Polish ruling class and Polish intellectuals had aimed at therestoration of a Poland bounded by the frontiers of 1772. These frontiers wouldnot in any way correspond with ethnical boundaries, and a State containedwithin them would not be a National State.

Historical Poland was not a National State, but a multinational Empirewhich arose in the course of centuries when the dogma of Nationalism, asunderstood in modern times, did not exist.” 13)

The British Foreign Minister, Balfour, also energetically opposed the Frenchwith the explanation:

“I have listened to this recommendation with concern; the Poland of 1772shall become that of 1918, according to your reports. We did not pledgeourselves to that. What we have committed ourselves to is the creation of aPoland comprising Poles (Polonais). The State of 1772 does not meet thisobjective.” 12)

Precisely what these facts expound most clearly is that “there is nowhere inthe publications on international law, including the Polish literature, the assertionto be found that the Poland of today (after 1918) is the re-establishment of thePolish Kingdom of old”.14) Otherwise, the long-winded debate on “Polishindependence” during the years 1917-1923 would surely have been redundant,yes, even nonsensical, if one had merely wanted to re-establish the former PolishState.

“It is clear that the real Poles are in the grip of a fever of conquest, in thatthey, while unable to revise borders which have turned out to be impossible tomaintain, are only thinking of new conquests.” 15)

Again and again the demand for revising the Versailles Treaty resoundedthroughout Poland after 1919. This, however, was understood by the Polishpoliticians to mean merely the fulfilment of further claims, first and foremost theclaim for East Prussia and Danzig. Roman Dmowski, the leading Polish agitatorat Versailles, explained in 1923:

12) ibid., pp. 320-322.13) H. Seton-Watson, Eastern Europe between the Wars 1918-1941, p. 320.14) P. Roth, op. cit., p. 58.15) F. Grimm, Frankreich und der Korridor, p. 92.


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“I never fought for the return of Poland – since that was taken for granted– what I was fighting for was the creation of a Greater Poland. The present-day Poland is not small, but we must all keep in mind that it is only the firstinstalment for a truly Greater Poland. As yet Poland is not a totally completeempire, but she must expand until she has become one, if her continued existenceis ever to be permanent.” 16)

Roman Dmowski was not alone in this. President Wojciechowski wasemphasizing the request for additional territories for the purpose of creating GreaterPoland.16) In the same year of 1923, the Polish Minister of Education and the Arts,Stanislaw Grabski, in his work “Observation on the present historical Moment ofPoland”, had elevated the Polish expansion northwards into the supreme principlefor Poland’s foreign policy. The objective of this policy was to be

“reinforcing the elements of victory in the struggle with Germany that wasnot yet at an end...

The Baltic coast will, sooner or later, be the object of a clash betweenPoland and Germany…

The Polish people cannot accept the result of the plebiscite in the Masurenregion as the final verdict in this affair… The existence of the republic canonly ever be of a permanent nature once we are victorious in the unavoidablefight against Germany.” 17)

The right-wing parties in Poland, particularly the National-Democrats, wererejecting a border revision along ethnographical principles already for the reasonthat the Treaty of Versailles had not satisfied all of their territorial demands. Butalso the Centre and the Left were not prepared to go along with it.18) The National-Democratic party of Poland was keeping alive their pan-Slavic expansionism,which had already been agreed upon as a Russian-Polish war aim in mid August1914 between the Russian Foreign Minister Sasonov and Dmowski and wascondoned during the First World War by the Western Powers19) during the period1919-1939. Dmowski’s party colleague Giertych wrote on the subject of the Treatyof Versailles:

“Under the treaty, Poland obtained far more of the territories stripped fromGermany than all the other states in Europe put together, including France…

16) C. Höltje, Die Weimarer Republik und das Ostlocarno-Problem 1919-1934, p. 136, quotes aspeech given by Reich Foreign Minister J. Curtius.

17) H. Laeuen, op. cit., p. 313.18) H. Roos, Polen und Europa, p. 4.19) O. Wagner, Der slawische Vorstoß nach dem deutschen Osten, p. 31.


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If any country can look upon the Versailles Treaty as a great politicaltriumph, that country is Poland. ...

We can say without exaggeration that, after the union with Lithuania in theyear 1386, the Versailles Treaty constitutes the greatest achievement of Polishdiplomacy in the course of our thousand-year history...

Versailles is the only political victory in our history since the 17th century.”20)

Roman Dmowski, in a speech in Posen 1923, took “the gifts from the coalitionat the western borders, where Poland had not attained anything by her own efforts”merely for “a small down-payment for a truly Greater Poland”. 21)

His National-Democratic doctrine did not simply intend to claim for Polandwhat was Polish, but rather

“that Poland demand as much as she could manage to Polonize.” 22)

The Polish paper Dzien Polski stated in 1923:

“The taking possession of the Memelland was to be only the trial run forthe eventual inevitable impending acquisition of East Prussia by Poland.” 23)

Gazeta Gdansk on 9 October 1925:

“Poland must insist on the fact that she cannot exist without Königsbergand the whole of East Prussia. We must now demand at Locarno that the entireEast Prussia be dissolved. It can have an autonomy with Polish sovereignty.Then there will no longer be a Corridor. Should this not come about in a peacefulway, then there will be a second Tannenberg and then, hopefully, would alldomains return to the fold of their beloved motherland.”24)

A high-ranking Polish General Staff officer, H. Baginski, in a book publishedin Warsaw in 1927 and awarded the annual prize of the “Polish commission forinternational intellectual co-operation”, specified the main aims of Polish foreignpolicy: annexation of Danzig, East Prussia and most of Silesia.

20) ibid., p. 36, quotes J. Giertych, Pól wieku Polskiej polityki (“Half a century of Polish politics”),1947, and R. Dmowski, Polityka Polski i odbudowanie Panstwa, Hannover, 1947 (“Poland’spolitics and the rebuilding of the State”).

21) ibid., p. 11; instructions of Marshal Pilsudski to Foreign Minister Wasilewski, sent to Paris in1919.

22) H. Laeuen, op. cit., p. 298.23) K.S. v. Galera, Geschichte unserer Zeit, vol. VI, p. 172.24) C. Höltje, op. cit., p. 84.


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“There can never be peace in Europe until all Polish territories are restoredto Poland, until the name Prussia, the name of a nation no longer in existence,is erased from the map of Europe, until the Germans have moved their capitalwestwards from Berlin, for example to the former capital of Magdeburg onthe Elbe, or Merseburg on the Saale, until their state has again assumed itsformer name and until they have stopped dreaming about a ‘revision of theirborder in the East’.” 25)

The French professor of Slavonic studies, René Martel, in the year 1929:“All Polish ideas end up, basically, as plans for expansion. Far from wishing

to resolve the question of the Corridor in a manner acceptable to Germany,they are dreaming in Poland of extending that territory by annexing Danzigand East Prussia in one way or another.” 25)

An article appearing in 1930 in the review Mocarstwowiec (“The great powerleague”), close to Pilsudski and, like all publications, subject to state censorship,read in part:

“We are aware that war between Poland and Germany cannot be avoided.We must systematically and energetically prepare ourselves for this war. Thepresent generations will see that a new victory at Grunwald (allusion to theBattle of Tannenberg 1410) will be inscribed in the pages of history. But weshall fight this Grunwald in the suburbs of Berlin. Our ideal is to round Polandoff with frontiers on the Oder in the West and the Neisse in Lausatia, and toincorporate Prussia, from the Pregel to the Spree. In this war no prisoners willbe taken, there will be no room for humanitarian feelings. We shall surprisethe whole world in our war with Germany.” 26)

British journalist Colonna rightly added:

“Such boasts and threats as these have not, of course, been made by thewhole Polish people. On the contrary, the ordinary man in the street in Polanddefinitely opposes the idea of fighting for a new frontier and is all for peace.But there is an element in Poland which demands that Germany should bepartitioned.” 26)

During the year 1930-1931 there was published in the Sejm an officialmemorandum “Aims of Polish Foreign Policy” of the Foreign Ministry in Warsaw,in which Oder and Sudeten are described as the western-border-aspiration.27)

25) ibid., pp. 137, 141; quotes René Martel, Deutschlands blutende Grenzen.26) B. de Colonna, Poland from the Inside, p. 90.27) H. Roos, op. cit., p. 39.


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“The witness K. Graebe had been continuously, from 1922-1936, a memberof the Polish Sejm. He was born in Karniszewo, district of Gnesen, provinceof Posen... – The witness emphasizes that, since the founding of the Polishstate, German-Polish antagonism had been increasing year by year dueparticularly to the harsh and often terrorizing attitude of the Poles towards thelarge German minority. …

There is, moreover, no doubt that Poland had, from the beginning, practisedan active anti-German policy that was not satisfied with the territories strippedfrom Germany.

I recall an official report of the Polish Foreign Office from that time – itwas perhaps in the year 1931 – entitled ‘Aims of Polish Foreign Policy’, whichdealt with the desired westward expansion, giving very precise details. In thismemorandum, already at that time, was the aspired-to western border describedas the Oder-Neisse-Line. ... My colleagues and I understood this report to bean extraordinary threat to Germany and, considering the hostile attitude of thePoles, we feared, then already, an armed conflict.” 28)

The Polish nationalists were making additional demands for Memel andLithuanian territory, as well as Czech and Slovakian assets.29)

“For the Polish press it was not enough that every request for a modificationof the borders in favour of Germany had been rejected, but was propagatingthe need for ‘the restoration of all Polish territories to Poland’. Thus we mayread, for example, in the Kalendarz Morski (Gdingen) that the Polish people‘with all resoluteness’ must demand ‘the return of East Prussia’ and, in theevent of this not happening, ‘the world would awake one day amid a thunderousroaring of war’.

The result of the plebiscites in East and West Prussia of 1920 was fiercelyattacked at every opportunity as a falsification of the true circumstances. Polandcould not relinquish her ‘ancient rights’...” 30)

The Polish Foreign Minister, Colonel Beck, in 1932:

“Poland could not even be content with the status quo.” 31)

The Polish deputy commissioner general in Danzig, Lalicki, also in 1932:

“Today we cannot name the day and the hour when the Versailles Treaty

28) Krupp-Prozeß Verteidigungsdokumentenbuch 2a Nr. 133 (Krupp trial: Documents for theDefence), book 2a, no. 133.

29) C. Höltje, op. cit., p. 13.30) ibid., pp. 157-158.31) H. Roos, op. cit., p. 35.


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will be redressed. Not only the Poles of Danzig, but also our brothers enslavedby Germanic hatred in East Prussia will return to the motherland. The day willcome – it has dawned already – when Danzig will be returned.” 32)

In the year 1939 also, members of the Polish government were repeatedlyinvolved in increasing the warmongering and the propagating of these territorialdemands – quite apart from the censored press that was keyed into this tune anyway.It is regrettable that in all this nobody thought of reproaching any of them for“being vengeful” and “war-mongering”, and a law forbidding the “stirring-up ofhatred amongst nations” and “racial mania” did not exist in Poland either.

“Grey clouds hung in the sky, and it was chilly on that March-Sunday in1939. In the Elizabethmarket in Bromberg stood a dense mass of people. Manyuniforms with decorations: the Polish association of ex-servicemen and theresistance and the West Marches association had summoned people to a rally.Flags, prayers, speeches. When the sentence fell, ‘We want Oppeln andKönigsberg!’ the cheering would not stop. ‘We will not hand over the landfrom whence comes our race,’ was sung by the crowd. Already children inschool were learning the ‘Rota’ composed by the Polish poet Maria Konopnicka.This was a hate song, directed at the Germans. Straight after the Paternosterand the national anthem. ‘The Germans will not spit in our face!’ was resoundingthroughout the square. A Catholic priest gave his blessing, the flags werelowered, the crowd went down on their knees, the bells of the Elizabeth churchwere ringing. Then a procession lined up. Half an hour later, Polish policemenwere trying to protect the windows of the German shops in the main streetsagainst the blind zeal of the protesters. Standing in front of the windows withoutstretched arms they were really trying their utmost to force back the crowd.They were doing their duty. But it did not help much.

One or two days earlier, it was said in the newspaper that Great Britain hadgiven the government in Warsaw far-reaching guarantees…” 33)

On 3 June 1939, the Polish Vice Premier Kwiatkowski declared at the openingmeeting of the Economic Council of Pommerellen:

“Pommerellen is, and ever will remain, Poland’s connection with theworld.”34)

Equally, the Social Welfare Minister Koscialkowski stated on the 4 June 1939,on the occasion of the unveiling of the Pilsudski Memorial Tablet at Ciechocinek:

32) C. Höltje, op. cit., p. 137.33) West-Östliche Begegnung, no. 6, August/September 1959, p. 11, documentation: Karl-Heinz Fenske.34) “German White Book” No. 2, 1939, doc. 378: report of the German Ambassador von Moltke of

6 June 1939.


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“The possession of Pommerellen is an indispensable condition for Poland’seconomic and political prosperity… In the event of a struggle being forcedupon Poland, to regain those ancient Polish regions which ought to have cometo Poland long ago, is the aim of this fight.” 34)

Apart from the innumerable press reports and statements that were made byleading spokesmen of the Polish public and delivered with the same aggressivezeal, there were five books in particular that would endorse this attitude of mind:

“They [these books] wanted to call to mind Poland’s ‘historic right’ tothese territories [Danzig, East Prussia, Silesia and Pommerellen] and, withtheir skilful presentation, achieved that purpose at least in part.” 35)

The first of these books:Consulibus “Experiences and errors of our foreign policy with regard to the

tasks of the present”, Warsaw 1926.Content: Demands partition of East Prussia between Poland and Lithuania

and of Upper Silesia between Poland and Czecho-Slovakia.The second:Melchior Wankowicz “On the trail of the Smentek”, Warsaw 1936.Content: A journey through East Prussia, which will reveal the alleged

oppression of the Mazurs, who, for their part, had become almost completelyalienated from Poland.

The third:J. Kilarski “Gdansk”, Posen 1937.Content: The city of Danzig is passed off as being formerly Polish; the

population is allegedly only awaiting liberation from their ‘white-wash coating’of Germanness.

The fourth:Stanislaw Wasylewski “In the Oppelner Silesia”, Kattowitz 1937.Content: Aim and purpose of this book would be – according to the author – to

acquaint the Polish public with a hardly noticed piece of ground, neglected andforgotten by Poland for centuries.

The fifth:Jozef Kisielewski “The soil preserves the past”, Posen 1939.Content: “We were on the Elbe, we were pushed beyond the Oder... A favourable

wind is filling our sails. After a long span of disfavour...”

“These voices that were most typical of the time, were accompanied by a

35) W. Wagner, Die Oder-Neiße Linie, pp. 7-8.


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chorus of similar but less noticeable oral and written utterances which wereintensifying to the degree that the German-Polish relations were worsening. In1939, a leaflet distributed by the organizing committee for the Grunewaldanniversary celebration (in commemoration of the Battle of Tannenberg 1410)at Bielitz bluntly stated: ‘We will take back what the German has taken fromus on the Elbe, the Oder and the Vistula’!” 35)

“Tempo Dnia” was informed already on 30 July 1939 on “the Polish peaceconditions after the next war” to the effect that they were able to delineate thatEast Prussia, Upper Silesia and Pommerellen as far as Kolberg will go to Poland.36)

Polish annexationist maps were posted in Polish cities as placards showingred-white Polish flags on German cities as far as Stettin.37) The “IllustrowanyKurjer” on 29 June 1939 criticized the 1919 borders: Since these were allegedlyunfair to Poland, it was suggested that future opportunities would permit theimprovement of the Polish western frontier.37) It was known in London that Polandwas hoping to take over the former German colonies.38)

“Frequently maps were also depicted which, for example, would supposedlyrepresent the Polish “west frontiers” at the time of King Boleslaw the Brave(Chrobry) or under Boleslaw Crooked Mouth – frequently, not entirely faithfulto historical assessments, they would extend as far as the Elbe or Saale. Evenat the military-geographical institute in Warsaw a gigantic mural was uncovereda few years before the outbreak of the Second World War, depicting howBoleslaw the Brave (Chrobry) (according to the legend) had boundary postsknocked into the ground on the Saale.” 39)

However, the Polish demands for German land were not isolated occurrences.The official programme of the Polish West Marches Association, as defined inApril 1926, demanded the drawing up of a Polish frontier from the Oder in thewest (to include Stettin) up to the middle and lower Duna in the east (includingRiga).

“At the same time [1926], there was being propagated, in a paper by an

36) ibid., p. 9.37) D. Hoggan, The Forced War, p. 390.38) ibid., p. 368 (German edition), and Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV,

doc. 189, 306.39) W. Wagner, op. cit., pp. 5-6. Examples: K. Kireski, Pomorze Polskie (Pommerellen), Posen, 1928, p. 16; G. Sappok, Polnische Wunschträume, Berlin, 1943, illustration 13; S. Kozierowski, Atlas der geographischen Namen des Westslawentums, Posen, 1934-1938.


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author calling himself ‘Consulibus’, the partition of East Prussia betweenPoland and Lithuania and of Upper Silesia between Poland and Czecho-Slovakia. But even outside of the protective anonymity of manifestos andreports, influential politicians were admitting to the selfsame ideas.” 39)

When in 1921 Poland was drawing up the frontier (treaty of Riga betweenPoland and the Bolsheviks), incorporating seven million Ukrainians and two millionWhite Russians into her state association, by no means did this signify that thedreams of a Great Polish Empire between the three seas – the North Sea, theBlack Sea and the Adriatic – of the “geopolitical region of Poland” were nowover. The Polish magazine Nasza Przyszlosc was proposing a Polish-Japaneseborder along the Urals in the summer of 1939. Polish maps depicting nationalfrontiers reaching the Volga, along with corresponding publications and utterancesby well-known Poles, were no isolated efforts.39) The Greater Polish notions ofincorporating the Ukraine up to and including Kiev and an overland connection tothe Black Sea were as alive in 1939 in Polish government circles as they had beenin 1919-1920.40)

“Mr. Beck ‘made no secret of the fact that Poland had aspirations directedtowards the Soviet Ukraine’, when Ribbentrop visited Warsaw on 1 February[1939].” 41)

Up to this year “Poland alone had a blueprint for the reduction of Russianpower in the East.” 42)

For years the Polish governments have been tolerating these trends, haveencouraged them, supported them and justified them. Not one of these demandshave come about from any so-called need for having to offer resistance to theNational Socialist form of rule in Germany or indeed to the foreign politics of theThird Reich. “The Piastian idea” of westward expansion was an equally purelyPolish body of thought as was that of expansion northwards and eastwards.43)

There is proof that the aim of the Polish general public before 1933 and after1933 was exactly the same: to drive out and to displace the East German population.

“The Poles tried systematically to drive out the Germans...

40) Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945, vol. V, doc.126: von Ribbentrop’smemorandum of 1 February 1939 about his discussions in Warsaw at the end of January.

41) A. J. P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 196.42) D. Hoggan, op. cit., p. 271.43) G. Moltmann, Amerikas Deutschlandpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg, p. 111.


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As early as 1933 there were moments, as an experienced American ob-server wrote, when ‘the tension seemed too great to be borne any longer’.” 44)

From the time of her renewed founding in the year 1916, or rather 1918, up to1939, Poland has been at war with every one of her neighbours (except Rumania)or was preparing to go to war. Of the 5,147 kilometres of Polish border almost4,000 kilometres are disputed. In spite of her painful wounds Germany remainedin these twenty years the only neighbouring country with whom Poland couldenjoy temporary friendly relations – during the Hitler period! In the generallyconsidered “peace-loving” Stresemann era Poland was pursuing her policy ofhostility towards Germany as ardently as ever. The short-lived friendship with theThird Reich was certainly only possible because Hitler had not pressed for arevision of the unjust Versailles requirements and was prepared “to give uptemporarily the German interests in Danzig in order to win over the Poles”.45)

Roman Dmowski “noted in his memoirs that Wilson did not understand thedetails of the Polish problem, had no feeling for European politics, and was undulydevoted to the idea that everything could be settled on the basis of internationallaw.”46) International law was not in demand by the Polish leadership during theperiod 1919-1939. One was intoxicated with other notions, started out fromdifferent principles. The British writer and historian J.W. Wheeler-Bennett’smocking tone seems appropriate: Poland had been conducting her policy like “acanary who has persistently but unsuccessfully endeavoured to swallow two cats”.46)

In his memoirs, the Polish Ambassador in London, Raczynski, described thatpolicy as follows:

“Pilsudski well knew how much Poland owed to the victorious Allies ofthe first war. He was not blind either to the strength of the Western Powers orto the fact that their own interest prompted them to help Poland to achieve aplace in the sun, despite pressure from her neighbours to the East and West.But he was more inclined to rely on his own resources than on the goodwill ofAllies whom he lacked either the means or the inclination to get to know moreclosely. Moreover, Pilsudski, and especially those of his disciples who cameto power after him, suffered, perhaps unconsciously, from an inferioritycomplex. It was, in their eyes, vitally important to cure their fellow-countrymenof their supposedly submissive and deferential attitude towards foreigners,due to uncritical admiration of the latter material or cultural superiority. This

44) L. de Jong, The German Fifth Column in the Second World War. p. 35 and Das östlicheDeutschland – ein Handbuch, p. 496.

45) H. Roos, op. cit., p. 182.46) S. Sharp, Poland – White Eagle on a Red Field, pp. 266,150-151.


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frame of mind on the part of Pilsudski and his successors gave rise to the so-called ‘Great Power policy’. In the Marshal’s day this was no doubt justifiedby political calculation; but after his death it degenerated into a noxious fictionwhich threatened the very existence of the Polish State.”47)

However, this recognition did not prevent Raczynski to subscribe to the verysame expansionist and great-power-policy mentality with which he charged theleadership. This emerges powerfully from his open letter to Lloyd George of 25September 1939: In this letter he accused Lloyd George to be essentially responsiblefor the Polish defeat, because in 1919 he had awarded to Poland a “strategicallyindefensible” frontier 48) and because he had prevented “the demilitarization ofEast Prussia” and “the restoration of the historic union of Danzig with Poland”.49)

That the Polish leadership in the spring of 1939 was making claims to coloniesand was intending to discuss these with the British government,50) and that threeweeks later Lord Halifax was giving the unconditional guarantee against Germanyin the full knowledge of these expansionist endeavours on the part of Poland – orprecisely because of that? – should just be mentioned in passing.

“The fact that the true political aim of the Polish ruling class was notnationalist at all but imperialist, that it involved the domination of Poles overlarge numbers of people of origin other than Polish, has never been sufficientlyunderstood in Western Europe.” 51)

Poland’s Policy on her MinoritiesFundamental Position

In spite of the Treaty for the Protection of Minorities, as decreed by the Leagueof Nations, Poland considered Posen-West Prussia and the misappropriated partof Upper Silesia, but also the German city of Danzig, the territories to be“Polonized” once and for all. These aims were openly declared, and the relevantmeasures were taken stage by stage without any consideration for the peopleaffected. Poland was using every conceivable means in this struggle for the cultural,traditional and national element and identity (Volkstum). The yearly agrarian

47) E. Raczynski, In Allied London, pp. 162-163.48) Plainly this is to be understood as the rejected incorporation of East Prussia into Poland.49) E. Raczynski, op. cit., p. 345.50) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 189, 306.51) H. Seton-Watson, op. cit., p. 320.


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reforms and the reparcelling of the agricultural land (“Flurbereinigung”), as wellas the border zone laws, all contributed to a bloodless dispossession of the Germanpopulation. A referendum for the choice of a particular nationality (Option), whichhad been brought about without informing the general public beforehand of theconsequences that a positive declaration for Germany would incur, led already in1920-1921 to the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Germans. The Germanlanguage as official language was to be prohibited and severely constrictedotherwise. Exorbitant taxes, confiscation of community buildings and newspaperoffices, systematic boycotting of German firms and shops, biased prosecutionsagainst the press, lawsuits and bureaucratic harassment all led to financial strain,then to economic ruin and, finally, to the German people being turned out fromtheir homeground. Associations and organizations were banned, professionallicences refused or revoked, businesses expropriated. German workers weresystematically laid off, then deprived of unemployment benefit and evicted fromcompany accommodation. All jobs in the public sector were allotted to Polishimmigrants. Trade and commerce of the German people were heading towardsruin, especially since young Germans were denied apprenticeships. German schoolswere closed, German teachers intimidated if not dismissed, and German studentswere expelled from universities and thereby prevented from professional training.

“Of the 657 public schools for the German minorities in the year 1925(1927: 498), there remained, at the beginning of the school year 1938-39, only185 (150 in Posen-West Prussia and 35 in Upper Silesia).

Resistance to this policy was faced down with the most drastic measures...In 1924 alone, about a third of German holdings (510,000 hectares) went

into liquidation.” 1)

Insults and violence were also the order of the day, and the Polish police wouldrefuse, in most cases, to give protection to the German victims. The cultural life ofthe German minority was thus paralysed by these measures.

The “liquidation of German estates and the de-Germanization of the westernprovinces” was no accidental public utterance from the former Premier Sikorskiin 1923; it was unconcealed government policy 2) – since the year 1919. In Octoberof that year, the future Minister for Education and the Arts, Stanislaw Grabski,announced, at a delegates’ conference, the “Posen programme” with the followingwords:

1) H. E. Jahn, Pommersche Passion, pp. 233-234 and S. Horak, Poland and her National Minorities1919-1939, pp. 127-132 and B. de Colonna, Poland from the Inside, pp. 133-139 and K.E. Frhr.v. Türcke, Das Schulrecht der deutschen Volksgruppen in Ost- und Südosteuropa, pp. 165 -280.

2) “German White Book” No. 2, pp. 12-13, doc. 7.


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“We want to base our relations on love, but there is a love for fellowcountrymen and another love for foreigners. Their percentage amongst us isby far too high. Posen can show us how 14 per cent or even 20 per cent can bereduced to 1.50 per cent. That foreign element will need to decide whether itwill be better off somewhere else. Poland is exclusively for the Poles!” 3)

“Such remarks were not an isolated occurrence, unfortunately.” 4)

Following a few examples of the various means of displacement:

“Withholding or withdrawal of citizenship, followed by expulsion fromthe territory on the grounds of dealing with a “foreigner”, deportation of formercivil servants, teachers and other public employees together with their families,one-sided administration of taxes – especially of the enforcement of the taxregulations and of the rules for the Agrarian Reform, withdrawal of theentitlement to practise one’s occupation (by revoking of licences, concessions,permits) with the effect of wrecking the basis of economic life, calls for boycotttolerated by the authorities. ‘The consequent feeling of insecurity with regardsto justice and the awareness of being at the mercy of an alien Power gave riseto a state of panic amongst the Germans, leading to panic selling of propertyand emigration of such magnitude that it even exceeded the consequentialresult of any Polish force brought to bear.’ This policy forced the Germanelement of West Prussia and Posen to emigrate en masse between 1919 and1926.” 4)

German documentation attests:

“The hatred for Germanism had spokesmen in every party. Next to theNational-Democrats stood the Christian-Democrat Korfanty and the Pilsudski-follower and Voivode of Silesia, Grazynski. But even stronger than the swayheld by political parties over public opinion was the influence of a number oforganizations and institutions, although most of all it was the press thatconsidered the fight against everything German to be their sole duty. Foremostof these is to be mentioned the ‘Western Marches Society’, whose originalpurpose had been to secure a Polish national character in the new westernterritories by a possibly complete displacement of the German element, butwhich had soon extended its activities throughout Poland. These consisted inthe regular organization of whole weeks of propaganda, and also in‘spontaneous demonstrations’ which were unleashed, after due preparation,against German schools, newspapers, bookshops, as well as against the personalsafety of individual Germans. The ‘Western Marches Society’ was responsible

3) G. Rohde, Die Ostgebiete des Deutschen Reiches, p. 126 and S. Horak, op. cit., p. 136 and R.Breyer, Das Deutsche Reich und Polen 1932-1937, pp. 51-52.

4) K. Rabl, Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Völker, pp. 126-127.


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for the ‘Black Palm Sunday’ 1933 in Lodz, when on that day German culturalinstitutions (publishing house, school, bookshops etc.) were wrecked.Furthermore, the Polish insurgent associations in Upper Silesia and Posen wereto distinguish themselves by their radical, often brutal, anti-German attitudes.They saw to it that even in times, when an obvious easing of political tensionwas evident, the anti-German mood was kept alive.” 5)

Again, it must be emphasized, this policy was an official governmentprogramme. Whatever historical documents are consulted, everywhere is to befound depressing evidence which, on the part of Prussian or German policies vis-à-vis the Poles of such single-mindedness and degree of violence, had hithertobeen unknown. Whatever Poland might say of the Prussian Kulturkampf of the1870s6), the Settlement Law of 1886 or the Expropriation Law of 19087), the factremains that after a century of German rule (1815-1918), there were in the provinceof Posen 41.3 per cent and in West Prussia 24.1 per cent of the rural land holdingsin the possession of Polish landowners.8) The generosity of Prussia even went sofar as to make it possible, at the turn of the century, for Polish seasonal workers toacquire private land on a scale of 29,000 hectares in the purely German region ofEast Prussia, where there had never been a Polish settlement before. These seasonalworkers were directed by the West Marches Association (Westmarkenverband),the “Landbank”, founded in Posen in 1886, and a close network of Polish Co-operative banks and institutes engaged in the parcelling-out of land.9) In thenotorious memorandum of 8 October 1918, which Roman Dmowski had presentedto the American President Wilson, demanding considerable territorial expansionfor Poland, this Polish agitator admitted – and thereby the following Polish agitationto this day is reduced to absurdity:

“All the endeavours of the German people and the German governmentcould not break the national resistance of the Poles. The Polish population andthe Polish ownership of property were growing steadily and the Polishbusinessman, as well as Polish industry, was rapidly gaining a foothold in thecompetition with German commerce and German industry. This is proof of thestrength and the ability to survive of the Polish population in the entire territory,

5) Das östliche Deutschland – ein Handbuch, p. 496.6) B. Schumacher, Geschichte Ost-und Westpreußens, p. 285. Purchases were done primarily at the

expense of the German properties and did not mean displacement of the Polish element.7) ibid. This law retained the characteristics of a mere authorization and was practically only applied

in four cases in the year 1912.8) F. Heiß, Deutschland und der Korridor, p. 159. In 1918 in Posen 47.8% of the land was privately

owned by German people, 10.9% was in State ownership; in West Prussia 55% was in Germanprivate hands and 20.9% was owned by the State.

9) B. Schumacher, op. cit., p. 287.


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and is, at the same time, also the most striking example of a government actingagainst the will and the interest of the people, a government that will retain itsdestructive character as long as the Polish provinces are part of Germany.” 10)

Let history record the following: While under German rule, “Polish ownershipof property was growing steadily”, and Polish commerce, as well as Polish industry,“was rapidly gaining a foothold amongst their competitors”!

This Poland of the twentieth century looked upon co-existence with the Germanpeople in a completely different light:

“Weighty also were the economic and social measures put upon membersof the [German] minority: expropriation of forest and farmland, dismissal ofpublic and private employees, refusal to take on apprentices and other applicantsfor employment or to accept applicants for civil service posts, refusal to promotepublic servants on the grounds of nationality, cancellation of the entitlementto pensions and state-benefit income, refusal to consider German-ownedbusinesses for municipal public orders. This in particular affected the Germansin both Poland and Czechoslovakia. The persons affected by these and similarrestrictions of rights should have had recourse to the protection of the Leagueof Nations. In retrospect it has to be acknowledged with deep regret that theway this duty was discharged by the League was quite inadequate. Already theprocedural prerequisites, which had been designed for the complaints ofminorities, were detrimental to a speedy and benevolent settlement of suchcases; so it was that not even a twentieth part of the petitions, which had beensent to the League of Nations between 1920 and 1930, were given a decisiveruling. The other 95.5 per cent were either rejected or remained unfinished.”11)

In 1936 Marshal Smigly-Rydz’s paper, the Warsaw Kurjer Porany, commentedon this subject:

“One cannot actually state that the Germans will succeed in stopping thecontinuing process of de-Germanization of the Western regions, but there isno doubt that they intend to put obstacles in the way of this process.

Thus the Poles could be sure of getting ever closer to their goal of ejectingor absorbing the German element. The only thing they need fear from theactivity of the Germans was a certain slowing of the pace.”12)

By means of expropriation and land reform, by 1939 Poland had acquired

10) P. Roth, Die Entstehung des polnischen Staates, p. 136.11) K. Rabl, op. cit., p. 120.12) T. Bierschenk, Die deutsche Volksgruppe in Polen 1934-1939, p. 361.


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three-quarters of a million hectares of privately-owned German estates.13) Butneither Britain nor the League of Nations opposed this policy, neither before 1933nor after 1933. On the contrary, by their attitude they were encouraging it, even atthe time, when Poland’s additional territorial claims must have plainly alertedBritain of the dangers to peace in Europe! Of course, French and British politiciansprotested now and then in Warsaw, but without any vigour and without any effect.The Manchester Guardian reported from Poland on 14 December 1931:

“The minorities in Poland are to disappear. Polish policy makes sure thatthey do not disappear on paper only. This policy is recklessly pushed forward,without the least regard for world public opinion, international treaties or theLeague of Nations. Under Polish rule the Ukraine has become hell. The samecan be said of White Russia with even more justification. The aim of the Polishpolicy is the disappearance of the national minorities, on paper and in reality.”14)

The same British newspaper had stated a year earlier, on 17 October 1930:

“The Polish terror in the Ukraine is today worse than anything else inEurope. The Ukraine has become a land of despair and destruction. The situationis all the more of a provocation, considering that while the rights of theUkrainians have been guaranteed under international law, the League of Nationsremains deaf to all their appeals and requests and the rest of the world knowsnothing of the facts, or else does not care...” 15)

The Treaty for the Protection of Minorities, which represented the fundamentalcondition for the transfer of German land16), was cancelled unilaterally by Polandin pursuance of her rigorous “peace mission” in 1934, and she denied the Leagueof Nations the right – agreed under the Treaty – to check on “internal Polishaffairs”. Leaving that aside, Poland was practising already before that time, “witha continual flouting of agreed guarantees an extreme policy of oppression”, bytrying to destroy the very foundations of life of the minority Germans.17)

“A senior Polish government official in Upper Silesia stated: ‘We arePolonizing again – in ten years time the job will be finished’.” 17)

13) F. Heiß, op. cit., p. 243.14) H.E. Jahn, op. cit., pp. 235-236.15) K. Rabl, op. cit., p. 117.16) P. Roth, op. cit., pp. 57-58.17) C. Höltje, Die Weimarer Republik und das Ostlocarno-Problem 1919-1934, p. 42 and S. Horak,

op. cit., p. 65.


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An indication of just how charged were the German-Polish relations before1933 is the fact that up to 1923 over half-a-million Germans had to leave theirhomeland Posen-West Prussia and, according to Polish quarters, that number hadrisen to one million by 1931.18) That figure represented – even before Hitler cameto power – almost half of the local German residents! By August 1939, about one-and-a-half million (1.5 m) out of a total of two million and two hundred thousand(2.2 m) Germans from the territory of the Corridor and East-Upper Silesia wereforced to flee to the Reich.19) In the summer of 1939 alone, the number of refugeesput up in German camps amounted, by the 21 August 1939, to seventy thousand(70,000), not counting those refugees who had found private shelter or those whowere shot or captured during their flight.20)

A leading figure of the German co-operative system in West Prussia wrote:

“The [Polish] school lessons with their reading matter, the newspapers andthe Polish broadcasting had been sowing hatred throughout the past twentyyears.” 21)

“The basic principle, according to which the German minority in Polandwas to lead their lives – as stated in the Versailles Treaty – was thus removed[decision of the Polish government to destroy the organizations of the Germanminority].” 22)

“That this amicable participation of the German co-operatives in the buildingof the Polish state was answered with suspicion and increasing pressure isonly a detail in the German minority situation in these twenty years betweenthe First and the Second World War.” 22)

“The intensified attitude of the State was most evident in the implementationof the political administration, especially concerning police supervisionincluding passport matters. Here the new changes in the frontier zone regulationsof 1934 handed the State authorities within the enlarged border area, nowencompassing the whole of Pommerellen and the greater part of the voivodeshipof Posen, almost unlimited powers over the citizens, when, among other things,the residing and the right of domicile in the border region could be abolishedthrough administrative channels. These regulations were again tightened in

18) “German White Book” No. 2, p. 19, doc. 10.19) F. Heiß, op. cit., p. 224.20) T. Bierschenk, op. cit., p. 351.21) F. Swart, Diesseits und jenseits der Grenze, p. 151.22) ibid., p. 150.


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1937 and the hereditary right to his property of the farmer now became doubtful.Well before the war, the police had forms printed that were used to inform, atthe outbreak of war, all those Germans of some prominence at local level orthose who had fallen out of favour with the police, of their arrest – the preludeto their deadly trek to the East of Poland.”23)

It is no “Hitler-Fascist” who wrote the following:

“The Polish public had been seized, ever since 1933 in the face of thenational consolidating of the whole German nation, by a growing uneasiness.This was aggravated by exaggerated and false reporting which was repeatedlyslipping in news of persecution of Poles living in the Reich. Apart from thedisquiet, there was spreading an organized stirring-up of the population inPoland...

With the press campaign about the incident in the Westerplatte the anti-German mood had already come to a climax in March 1933. The tension wasnot discharged, however, in the form of a conflict with Germany, prepared tofit the prevailing atmosphere, but rather it was vented in attacks on the Germansin Poland. It was here that the pressure of public opinion found an outlet. Onecould almost speak of a plan, according to which such persecutions of theGerman element had been prepared to take place. They were not spontaneousexpressions of a “seething populace”, but were rather brought about by acarefully primed anti-German press and similar organizations...”24)

“The policy of restriction by the Polish authorities was continued as ifthere had never been a pact of agreement.” 25)

“In the sphere of the politics of culture, tradition and nationality (Volkstum),the natural differences appeared so strong as to almost make it impossible tohave any positive relations between the two states.” 26)

“Already in the spring of 1933, the Voivode [of Eastern Upper Silesia,Grazynski] had announced, in a programmed speech at the Polish Ministry ofthe Interior, the slogan ‘Exterminate the Germans’...” 27)

“The Polish government left the [German] proposals unanswered, andcarried on using the Non-Aggression Pact as a screen for a rigorous policy ofrestriction.” 27)

Another research result:

“Ignoring all agreements and promises of good will, which were frequentlyreaffirmed to the protests of the representatives of the German groups in Poland

23) ibid., p. 128.24) R. Breyer, op. cit., p. 265.25) ibid., p. 268.26) ibid., p. 299.27) ibid., pp. 306, 335.


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or of the German government, Poland continued its policies of violation untilthe last days of its existence as an independent nation.” 28)

A Dutchman, Louis de Jong, Executive Director of the Netherlands StateInstitute for War Documentation in Amsterdam, was given the task by UNESCO,after the Second World War, to examine the frequently quoted and secretive German“Fifth Column” in a historical-scientific way. His results:

“The Polish-German non-aggression pact, dating from 1934, was of noreal moment. Both the government and public opinion in Poland increasedtheir pressure on the “Volksdeutschen/German minority.” 29)

“No German data, however, have been made known that conflict with theview that the large majority of the “Reichsdeutschen” and “Volksdeutschen”living in Poland played a passive part up to the arrival of the German troops.”30)

“But it is a remarkable fact that there is no proven or even clear connectionwith the German military operations for many of the reported observations.”31)

“During the Nuremberg trial of the principal German war criminals, anaffidavit of Bohle’s was read, in which he asserted that neither the Auslands-Organization nor its members had ever ‘in any way received orders theexecution of which might be considered as Fifth Column activity’ – eitherfrom Rudolf Hess, whose immediate subordinate Bohle was, nor from himself.Nor had Hitler ever given any directives in that respect, Bohle said. He admittedthat there had been Germans abroad who had been used for espionage purposes,but that sort of work had been carried out by the French and the British fortheir espionage services as well, and in any case the espionage work done bythe Germans in question had had nothing whatsoever to do with theirmembership in the Auslands-Organization.” 32)

“The arguments used by Hess and Bohle were not printed by the worldpress.” 32)

Professor Hans Koch, an authority on the subject of German nationals abroad,stated:

“Kurt Lück, a leading expert on German-Slavic relations, has compiled alexicon where in over fifty pages are recorded insulting and obscene Polish

28) S. Horak, op. cit., pp. 140-141.29) L. de Jong, The German Fifth Column in the Second World War, p. 36.30) ibid., p. 156.31) The Polish “observations” quoted here: markings on roofs, on chimneys and on the ground as

pre-arranged signs for the Luftwaffe; alleged light, smoke and mirror “signals” were serving thesame purpose. Special buttons, sweaters or scarves would have been identification signs foragents; disguised priests and monks would have operated secret transmitters of match-box size.L. de Jong, ibid., pp. 156-157.

32) ibid., pp. 140-141.


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songs about the Germans; an enormous number of songs of almost patho-logical arrogance in which the Germans are usually compared to dogs. On theGerman side, songs of such profound repugnance are not in existence. On theother hand, it is well known that we have rather a whole array of songsexpressing sympathy for the Poles…

Just as there is no well-known novel or poem about the march on Moscow,so there is not one German book which speaks about the march on Warsaw.However, there exists a two-volume Polish work, published in Thorn in 1927,about a march on Berlin…” 33)

If we set next to this fundamental attitude of the Polish public, which is verifiablydocumented as having existed for decades, the facts that in Poland, especiallyduring the pre-war years, mass-meetings were taking place under the official slogan“Let’s go to Danzig!”, “Let’s go to Berlin!”34), and that there were certain circlesof the West Marches Society at the same time demanding “to emasculate all Germanmen, so that the German mob in Poland can no longer multiply”35) – then for everyfair-minded person the perimeters of a peaceable and of a warlike politics havebeen marked out. For in all these years, there has never occurred anything similarin Germany, rather a fundamental attitude based principally on respect for andappreciation of the eastern neighbouring nation prevailed here!

The minority regulations, although in the year 1937 henceforth agreed uponbilaterally by Germany and Poland, were still violated by Poland, as ForeignMinister Beck openly admitted.36)

“Even Minister Beck acknowledges – albeit in extremely cautious wording– for these days, that there seemed

‘the voivodes, especially those of Silesia and Posen, were eagerly competingwith each other’

‘to take measures which were of little use for resolving the minorityquestions in our western provinces…’

As ‘provocation’, however, was taken by the nationalistic Poles even themost harmless expressions of everyday life, such as use of the German language,etc…” 37)

In 1937 Erwin Hassbach, senator and chairman of the Council of Germans in

33) H. Koch in Der deutsche Osten – Seminar papers on the First Eastern Seminar at the Hochschulefür politische Wissenschaften (Institute for Political Sciences) Munich, 1956. pp. 28-29.

34) T. Bierschenk, op. cit., p. 320 and “German White Book” No. 2, p. XVIII.35) Deutsche Arbeit 1939 issue, p. 326.36) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. III, doc. 312 and vol. IV, doc. 151.37) T. Bierschenk, op. cit., p. 363.


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Poland, and Rudolf Wiesner, regional head of the German Youth Party(Jungdeutschen), once more lodged a complaint with the Sejm:

“The German element in Upper Silesia has become, after a period of fifteenyears of the Geneva Convention, a starving, unemployed and desperate groupof people. Everything has been taken away from us, over eighty per cent arewithout jobs and starving in Upper Silesia, our youth is growing up withoutany chance of being apprenticed; and against our businessman and trader arelentless campaign is waged. Must we also lose our land? The State and thePolish people need to clearly understand that poverty and starvation have limitswhich must not be crossed. There has been enough talk about equality andequal rights to jobs and bread for all. We Germans want finally to see action.From now on we intend to push through our national, cultural and economicrights by exercising the internal political channels. The precondition on thePolish side, though, is for them to abandon their intentions of annihilation.” 38)

The informal discussions, proposed by Berlin, by experts from their respectiveMinistries of the Interior with a view to improving the conditions of the minoritiesin the Reich as also in Poland, were repeatedly rejected by the Polish government.39)

Intensified Action 1938-1939

When “anti-Fascist” historians feel obliged to outline the Polish policies ofthe pre-war years, so they too will reach a conclusion that incriminates the formerPolish government. Even these historians confirm that Poland in her foreign andin her minorities policy dealings did not “have a very good hand”,1) indeed, wasnot even clear how to resolve the social welfare and constitutional question,2) orwas able to improve the wretched condition of the Polish peasantry;3) and thatPoland was in the forefront of setting up concentration camps. Even these historiansverify that the German-Polish minority dispute had not been a fabrication by Hitler.In fact, in the middle of the summer of 1939, the British government made the

38) R. Breyer, op. cit., p. 318.39) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 151 and P. Aurich, Der deutsch-

polnische September 1939, p. 22 seq. 1) W. Hofer, Die Entfesselung des Zweiten Weltkrieges, p. 28. 2) K. Ploetz, Auszug aus der Geschichte, p. 758. 3) E. Raczynski, In AlIied London, p. 349.


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main requirement for granting a financial credit to Poland “a fundamentalreadjustment of the Polish economic and financial conditions”, which includedthe devaluation of the zloty. 4)

“On the whole the picture they give [the German publications about thesufferings of the Volksdeutschen/minority Germans] tallies with what the Polesreported in their own official publications. If one wishes to get some idea ofpersecutions, it would be a mistake to neglect what the victims have to say.They usually have a better memory than their persecutors.” 5)

The Reich government had sent, in the opinion of resistance member vonWeizsäcker, in good time the most outstanding of their Ambassadors to Warsaw.6)

Whereas for years Poland was conducting an inflammatory press policy, Germany,in contrast, was rather treading softly in her journalistic publications – to the extentof suppressing reports of outrageous realities. In accordance with the newly changeddirection adopted by Warsaw in the spring of 1939, the seasonal workers, whoevery year in April would go to Germany, were detained for the first time, longbefore the events which allegedly were causing German-Polish friction.7) Apartfrom this, the intensified anti-German measures taken by the Polish authoritiessince February 1939 were, as a result, unleashing such anti-German sentimentsthat no limit was set even to willingness to murder.

“All moral sense and all reason seemed to have disappeared.” 8)

There is no causal relationship between these Polish policies and the Germannegotiation proposals made to Poland on 24 October 1938 or, indeed, with theoccupation of Prague on 15 March 1939; but they are directly interrelated, however,with the fundamental Polish attitude towards Germany in connection with thepromise from London to Warsaw in August/September 1938 to support Poland“as much as possible” against Germany at Danzig.9)

Already after the annexation of the Olsa territory, at the beginning of October1938, Poland was implementing ruthless enforcing measures such as mass-redundancies, abolition of German as official language, which even the Czechshad tolerated, the banning of the press, of holding assemblies, of organizing officialevents, while outrages and arrests were carried out on the German population,

4) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VI, doc. 245.5) L. de Jong, The German Fifth Column in the Second World War, p. 42 (footnote).6) E.v. Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, pp. 241-242.7) H. Springer, Es sprach Hans Fritsche, p. 214.8) T. Bierschenk, Die deutsche Volksgruppe in Polen 1934-1939, p. 348.9) D. Hoggan The Forced War, pp. 111, 163.


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amongst others, but also on the Czech population. (In the parliamentary electionsof 1935 in Teschen and Oderberg, the Germans had achieved respectively 46.8%and 40% of the votes, the Poles 10% and 20%.) 20% of the German population inthe Teschen region – approximately 5,000 people – were forced to leave withinthe first month of Polish rule.9) The diplomatic contacts between Poland andGermany remained unaffected by these occurrences, owing to the restraint of theReich government (Hitler’s orders, not to publish anything unfavourable to Poland).

In their biting attacks on Germany the Polish press did not even wait for theBritish guarantee; rather they were satisfied with secret assurances from Londonin August and September 1938, as well as the news from January to March 1939received from London and Washington.10) Already one month before Hitler’s entryinto Prague, on 15 February 1939,

“Poland published, in spite of warnings from the Western Powers againstdoing so, the List of Names of properties which were soon to be requisitionedfor parcelling in the course of the Agrarian Reform. The list contained anextraordinary large number of German names. On 24 and 25 February thereoccurred serious anti-German excesses by the student body.” 11)

While the land reform robbed the minority Germans in 1938 of two thirds oftheir arable land, so the Frontier Zone Law and Agrarian Reform expropriated inFebruary 1939 agricultural land, of which 72% belonged to German people (inprevious years the proportion had averaged 66%).12) Within a 30 kilometres wideborder strip Germans were no longer allowed to own land; this concerned in the85-110 kilometres wide “Corridor” nearly all of the West Prussian region.13) Inaddition, there was the activity of the West Marches Society, “the only point onwhose program[me] is extermination of the German element at the Polish westernfrontier”.13) The head of this West Marches Society, M. Zaleski, was claiming atthe same time, in a speech made at Kattowitz that Poland had made the pact withGermany in 1934 only for tactical reasons, so as to prepare the ground for a futureconflict; that it would be a comfortable screen for the Polish government to hidebehind while they could rid themselves of the German minority.14) Those withspecialized knowledge of this development had already earlier realized theserealities. Additionally to the Agrarian Reform, countless German enterprises,community buildings and associations were closed, confiscated or demolished,

10) H. Roos, Polen und Europa, p. 395.11) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, vol. I, p. 410.12) D. Hoggan, op. cit., p. 260-261; A. Buckreis, Politik des 20. Jahrhunderts, p. 39.13) ADAP, vol. V, doc. 51.14) “German White Book” No. 2, doc. 145.


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German children were tormented in school by their Polish school mates, whowere taught to hate them, German farmhouses were set on fire, “demonstrationsagainst the Germans” were organized, there were mass-arrests, expulsions initiated,fighting tolerated and fomented, workers were systematically dismissed, thedefining of the state of emergency in the border zone was extended to over onethird of the Polish sovereign territory,15) and wide-ranging lists of arrest warrantswere prepared.

The British backing, hinted at since August/September 1938, then the officialblank cheque of 31 March 1939, but also the goading tone of President Roosevelt,boosted Polish chauvinism into open persecution of the minority Germans. Forseveral months British Ambassador Kennard had been warning his governmentabout the dangerous consequences of these Polish activities.

The German government also was repeatedly drawing London’s attentionduring the decisive months of the year 1939 – April to August – to the exceedinglygrave occurrences in Poland. Factually correct – and never refuted by historicalresearch – the German White Book ascertained in the year 1939:

“German protests were of no avail (No. 360). At the beginning of April, apublic appeal proclaiming the general program[me] for de-Germanization ofthe country was circulated throughout Poland (No. 358). Towards the middleof April, the first German fugitives crossed the frontier (No. 359). It waspractically impossible for the Consulates to report every individual case (No.361). Anti-German agitation raged unchecked in Upper Silesia (No. 362).Reports from the German Consuls were full of terrorist acts (No. 363). ThePolish Insurgents Society gave the orders for these actions (No. 364). On May6, the Consul-General in Kattowitz reported two hundred acts of terror (No.365) and on May 19, another hundred, all of which had occurred in UpperSilesia alone (No. 372). All Germans were in fear of their lives and property.Terrorism spread also to Congress Poland and was intensified by systematicacts of incendiarism (No. 366). The last strongholds of German culture weredestroyed (No. 369, 373, 374, 377, 379, 383, 385, 390, 391, 399, etc.). Indespair, the German minority appealed to the Polish President (No. 369). TheBritish Government, although kept informed by the German Embassy in Londonof the nature of these developments which inevitably endangered peace (No.368), remained inactive. Towards the middle of May, anti-Germandemonstrations developed into pogroms, in the course of which thousands ofGermans were hunted “like unprotected game” (Nos. 370, 371). The numberof fugitives increased (No. 374) as did Polish “sabre-rattling”, the declarationof annexationist war aims (Nos. 367, 378) and public insults and affronts tothe Fuehrer which led to renewed protests (No. 382). In the commercial world,

15) ibid., doc. 349-450.


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German co-operative societies, dairies and pharmacies were systematicallyliquidated (Nos. 380, 395). On June 7 a report from Lodz stated: “The threatof death, torture etc., for German nationals, has become an everyday matter ofcourse.” Whole families, because of constant threats of murder, passed theirnights in the shelter of the woods (No. 381).

The only answer to protests lodged with the Polish Foreign Office was ashrug of the shoulders and the tacit avowal that nothing could be done againstthe military authorities and Polish chauvinism (Nos. 382, 385). …

Polish bishops were requested by a colonel on the General Staff to pray “thatthe time of tribulation for our Polish brethren beyond the frontier might be shortenedand that another Grunwald might release them from bondage” (No. 392).…

Time and time again the authorities themselves proved to be responsiblefor this process of liquidation (No. 396). …

Germans in Galicia were faced with annihilation; the outlook was hopeless,and they were threatened with arson and murder (No. 407). What was leftundone by open terrorism was made up for by an insupportable burden oftaxes and chicanery on the part of the authorities (No. 408).” 16)

Independent historians were also confirming these facts after the war:

“What happened to Poland in 1939 was by no means surprising. The outcomehad, as a matter of fact, been predicted quite early in the twenties by thoughtfulanalysts and a handful of statesmen. Yet these early predictions were easily forgotten.The superficial stabilization of conditions in Poland, propaganda, wishful thinking,emotional judgment, and an erroneous evaluation of the real strength behind thesabre-rattling of the Pilsudski-ite regime, combined to create, in the thirties, thefalse picture of a Poland which had seemingly come to stay, even if under somewhatdifficult conditions. The annihilation of the Polish state must have come as a shockto many who had been exposed to the optimistic picture (including the bulk of thePolish population, misled into interpreting its government’s bluster as strength).To the well informed it was hardly a surprise; however, the pretence of beingshocked by what was perfectly predictable is a standard form of behaviour ininternational relations.” 17)

“Months before the outbreak of hostilities the Polish government had givenorders for drawing up lists of suspect Reichsdeutsche and Volksdeutsche. Thiswas probably done in April and May, 1939, at about the time that Hitler denouncedthe German-Polish non-aggression pact. Some groups of Volksdeutsche, as wesaw, were taken into custody before the outbreak of war and were conveyed tointernment camps.” 18)

16) ibid., pp. XVIII, XIX. / English edit. pp. CXLII-CXLIV.17) S.L. Sharp, Poland – White Eagle on a Red Field, p. 151.18) L. de Jong, op. cit., p. 48.


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“In many places Polish patriotic societies had drawn up their own lists ofthose whom they deemed untrustworthy. These lists too were worked throughand [from 1 September 1939] often in a very rough way.” 19)

“German agricultural co-operatives were dissolved and many of their schools– already few in any case – were closed down, while Volksdeutsche who wereactive in the cultural sphere were taken into custody. Around the middle of May inone small town where 3,000 Volksdeutsche lived among nearly 40,000 Poles,in many houses and shops household effects were smashed to bits. In the middleof June the remaining German club-buildings were closed down.

By mid-August the Poles proceeded to arrest hundreds of Volksdeutscheby way of preventive measure. Again they chose those who filled leadingfunctions in the community life of the Volksdeutschen. German printing-shopsand trade-union offices were closed. On August 24 eight Volksdeutsche whohad been arrested in Upper Silesia were shot down during transport.” 20)

“In view of the British-Polish guarantee in 1939, the tide (of oppression ofthe German minority in Poland) was rising higher and higher and was drowningthe original problem: Danzig and passage through the Corridor.” 21)

A French historian, Professor Lebre, wrote:

“The Polish nationalists, who were decidedly opposed to any rapprochementwith Germany and who had support in the army, but mainly in the Ministry ofthe Interior, exploited the situation [the annexation of the Olsa territory] so asto submit the Germans, who were living in the newly occupied area, tochicaneries.” 22)

“This state of mind [divorced from reality] was expressed in clumsyprovocations, and Count Szembek [Under-Secretary in the Polish ForeignMinistry] found himself constrained on 16 May 1939, to direct the attention ofthe Prime Minister, Skladkowski, to ‘the excesses of our propaganda withinPoland directed against Germany, e.g., distributing a map on which our bordersstretch from Berlin to Moscow, with Lithuania included in the national territory’.The minstrels are making all kinds of inappropriate jokes about Germany andthe person of Hitler.” 23)

“The overwrought state of the Polish public opinion might explain, amongstother things, the headstrong attitude of Colonel Beck at the most critical hours,mainly of the last two days of August.” 24)

19) ibid., p. 48.20) ibid., p. 37.21) E. v. Weizsäcker, op. cit., p. 242.22) H. Lebre in Les Origines Secrètes de la Guerre 1939-45, p. 49 (German ed. p.43).23) ibid., p. 101 (German ed. p. 81).24) ibid., p. 101 (German ed. p. 81).


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Does it not make one wonder to find that, when in documentary standard worksas, for instance, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten (“ContemporaryWorld History in Documents”), by Prof. Michael Freund, which are put at theservice for establishing Hitler’s sole war guilt, there could be neither documentaryevidence produced nor could even the claim be made that German acts ofprovocation in the region of the Corridor in 1939 were responsible for disturbingGerman-Polish relations? Neither in Prof. Freund’s work nor in any other seriouspublication is it claimed that the Documents on the Events Preceding the Outbreakof the War in the German White Books, dealing with the treatment and the oustingof the German element in Poland, are in any way exaggerated, are not objective orfactual or indeed, falsified. On the contrary, we find the statement about “theactual harsh and even cruel treatment of the German minority in Poland” as alsoabout the fact that the “Polish nation was in the grip of an unceasing wave ofGermanophobia”.25)

“Nobody is claiming that the German minorities in Poland were treatedwith generosity.” 26)

About the systematic dispossession of property since 1918/1919, about thepublic appeal throughout Poland at the beginning of April 1939 for the de-Germanization of the country starting with the total economic boycott of theGerman minority,27) about Revenue Office directives “to reduce the property ofthe German minority in Poland by all available means”,28) about the arbitrary arrests,about the chicanery of the judiciary and the destruction of the livelihood of peopleby the Polish authorities, about all of these – there is silence today.

The German element in Poland has always behaved loyally, and thousands ofVolksdeutschen were complying with the call-up to the Polish army.

“The Polish authorities, while in office, never once attempted to provedisloyalty on the part of the Germans in Poland since, apart from some isola-ted cases, it would have been impossible to do so.” 29)

None of the minority German organizations, be they political or economical,was ever put at the disposal of the German military operations, whereas the samecannot be said of the Polish minority groups in Germany.30) Now as in the past, thestatement of the Polish Foreign Minister, Colonel Beck, made in the afternoon on

25) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. II, p. 88.26) ibid., p. 240.27) “German White Book” No. 2, doc. 358.28) ibid., doc. 408: Circular order of the Polish Regional Revenue Office of Graudenz, summer 1939.29) R. Breyer, Das Deutsche Reich und Polen 1932-1937, p. 262.30) ibid., p. 296.


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31 August 1939, is still undisputed, “that no further serious incidents [from theGerman side] had taken place”.31) Only once did Beck complain to the BritishAmbassador about “acts of sabotage”; that was on the 31 August 1939 at 19.41p.m., when he added, however, that it was not known whether the originators wereGermans or Ukrainians.32)

This correct German attitude was confronted by Polish provocations, which aGerman historian describes from his own experience in West Prussia:

“The assaults and other acts of violence were increasingly accompaniedby threats to finish off the Germans once and for all. Many Poles were intimatingthat black lists were kept or were going to be drawn up. The vast majority ofthe Polish nation let itself be engulfed by a feeling of hatred towards theGermans, and was, in fact, in a political psychosis, from which individuals, letalone the masses, were abandoning themselves to commit against the Germanpeople every act imaginable, even the most unbridled and the most savage.The threats were getting ever more vindictive, the attacks ever more bloodied.The authorities, however, were beginning to make preparations on a large scalefor the arrest and mass deportation of Germans.” 33)

Another historian:

“Since the spring of 1939 Poland had been making extensive preparations forwar. Throughout the whole summer a Polish army was deployed along the linefrom Posen in the south to Bromberg in the north. This was the external situationin which the Polish government was determined to dissolve all organizations ofthe German minority through administrative channels.” 34)

The Statistische Bundesamt (Federal Office of Statistics) in Wiesbaden – anoffice undoubtedly to be regarded as absolutely factual:

“Not taken into account in these figures [statistical registration of theVolksdeutschen population movements] is the mass flight of the German peoplefrom Poland. This was, under the threat of fighting breaking out ever sincemid-1939, triggered off by the Polish persecutions of the German people. Bythe end of August [1939] about 70,000 Germans from Poland were living inrefugee clearing camps in the Reich whilst thousands of others had found privateaccommodation.

31) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 388.32) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 612.33) T. Bierschenk, op. cit., pp. 351-352.34) F. Swart, Diesseits und jenseits der Grenze, p. 145.


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Primarily it was the intensified Polish pressure, increasingly felt since 1933– such as the Frontier Zone Law, which was depriving Germans of the right ofinheritance in a broad border-belt area – that was driving many Germans outof the country.” 35)

“From central Poland, which was not affected by the Frontier Zone Law,and where the fight of the minority groups was assuming life-threateningproportions only shortly before the outbreak of war…” 36)

A German historian:

“Meanwhile [after the German-Soviet non-aggression pact], Warsaw wasdisplaying a façade of unperturbed calmness. However, the most savagechauvinists in the country were intensifying their terror, which they had alreadybeen perpetrating on members of the German minority for some time; also,Polish anti-aircraft batteries had fired on foreign commercial aircraft.

While the Quai d’Orsay, almost fearfully, was urging the Cabinet in Warsawto take the German rapprochement proposals into consideration, Downing Streetalso wished now that the ‘Poles would express their readiness for negotiationsin concrete terms’.

Warsaw had hitherto not taken any effective measures to contain the bloodyexcesses of the semi-official patriotic associations, to which already 3,000 to4,000 members of the German minority had fallen victim. Even now, Warsawdid not put a stop to these machinations, rather they tolerated an unrestrainedhate campaign in the press.” 37)

35) Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste (“German casualties in the expulsion”), published by theStatistischen Bundesamt , p. 285.

36) ibid., p. 286.37) H.G. Dahms, Der Zweite Weltkrieg, pp. 45, 48. In other sources are given 30-40 murdered Volksdeutsche (minority Germans) before the outbreak

of war and altogether, i.e. including the weeks after the start of war, 7,000 are quoted. Thedispute over these numbers was only started after the war, when victors and co-victors weremanipulating the German documents in their favour, when they withheld from German historicalresearch undesirable documentations and when, among other things, they were in this way exertingtheir influence on German historiography. Nevertheless, Polish-Communist historiography couldnot avoid having to admit that these Volksdeutschen were the first of the dead of the SecondWorld War. The shamefulness of these facts is in no way effected by whether the victor will onlyadmit to some thousand fewer victims than stated or whether the former German victor hasinflated the extent of this horror. Experts of these happenings, at any rate, always make the pointthat the published figures are far too low and, above all, that they do not include those countlessvictims, which the German element in Poland has lost through Polish terror since 1919.

G. Rohde, Die Ostgebiete des Deutschen Reiches, p. 134 ; W. Kuhn, Osteuropa-Handbuch Polen, p. 151; K.M. Pospieszalski, Sprawa 58,000 Volksdeutschow (Polish); S. Horak, Poland and her National Minorities 1919-1939, p. 135 (mentions 8,000).


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“So in the end it was, what Pilsudski had so appropriately characterized,the thousand-year-old hostility towards Germany of the Polish nation which,in conjunction with American influences, contributed so decisively to therejection of Hitler’s proposals.” 38)

A British publicist, who had still been travelling in Poland during the summerof 1939, noted:

“One must ask whether it is in keeping with the rights of small nations ornationalities that they should thus be included in States where they are exposedto such treatment. Poland has tried to make the minorities relinquish theirlanguage and customs; she has failed, despite more than twenty years ofactivities such as I have described in this chapter. But the attempts are stillgoing on. One begins to wonder whether the Ukrainians, White Russians andGermans should not also enjoy some protection from England, or must it onlybe the Poles?” 39)

The first blood that was flowing before the start of the Second World War wasthe blood of minority Germans in Poland. In spite of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact and the tension in Polish-Soviet relations, the Poles did not shyaway from intensifying the persecution of the Germans and the anti-Germancampaign in the press. By mid-August, 76,535 Germans had already fled to theReich 40) though certainly not because Hitler had forced them. The Germans inPoland had 20,000 dead to mourn before and after the start of the clashes, ofwhom 12,500 could be identified by name.41) That would mean nearly double thedeath toll of Volksdeutsche through murder than German soldiers killed duringthe entire Poland campaign (10,572). These excesses could not be excused underthe pretext that it was the case of the Polish government losing their grip on a“mass-movement” getting out of hand. The Polish leadership had been workingsystematically for months, yes, even years, towards this very end!

“The operation against the Germans had been methodically prepared; ithad been ordered!

Not that these victims were put straight before a firing-squad – thesemassacres of the Germans were never based on any title of law − withoutcause they were shot, without cause tortured to death, beaten and stabbed and

38) H. Roos, op. cit., p. 399.39) B. de Colonna, Poland from the Inside, p. 132.40) A. Buckreis, op. cit., p. 223.41) Seraphim, Maurach, Wolfrum, Ostwärts von Oder und Neisse, p. 43; P. Aurich, Der deutsch-

polnische September 1939, p. 5 seq.


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most of them, in addition, were savagely mutilated: these were deliberatemurders, mostly committed by Polish soldiers, policemen and gendarmes, aswell as by armed civilians, grammar school pupils and apprentices…” 42)

What is the official Polish attitude after the war?

“The Poles were not sorry for what had been done.” 43)

Poland’s Foreign Policy on GermanyStrategy

The conception of the state of Poland was shaped from 1919 to 1939 by thesame military junta that also created Poland’s foreign policy during this period.Therefore is the Polish foreign policy closely bound up with the plans and objectivesof Poland’s military leaders.

“He [Pilsudski] was sometimes Prime Minister, always War Minister andalways in control of the army, of which he remained Inspector General untilhis death. His nominees were placed in all the strategic positions of the PolishState, in the army, industry, the banks, the press. Critics of the regime said withsome justification that Poland had been turned into a colony to provide lucrativejobs for former members of the Pilsudski legions.” *)

The structure of the state, merely hinted at with these words, makes it plainthat in all of Poland’s governmental affairs from 1919-1939 the military were incharge. Their policy of territorial expansion was directed towards

– the west (“vital, because it would enlarge the basis for raw materials andwould secure for Poland the status of a Great Power”) 1)

– the north (because access to the Baltic Sea, including the “Oder territories”,the “Corridor”, Danzig, East Prussia and large parts of Lithuania would be regardedas the equivalent to the lungs of the Polish state organism)

– the east (because East Poland that included the Ukraine would be inaccordance with the “historical rights of Poland”)

– the south (because that way would make possible the “legitimate” borderwith Hungary).

This objective was to be reflected both in Poland’s foreign policy as well as in

42) H.E. Jahn, Pommersche Passion, p. 243 – further details seq., and P. Aurich, op. cit.43) L. de Jong, op. cit., p. 50. *) H. Seton-Watson, Eastern Europe between the Wars 1918-1941 , p. 163. 1) R. Dmowski Upadek Mysil Konserwatywney w Polsce, Warsaw 1914, p. 123, quoted in J.

Ahlers Polen, Berlin 1935, p. 70 seq. and D. Hoggan, The Forced War, pp. 20-21.


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her strategy. Power displays were to demonstrate the Great Power status to eachneighbouring state. The most important Polish author writing on the country’sforeign policy from 1935 to 1939, Adolf Bochenski, “advocated a policy of blood”,and he “decried any attempts to arrive at understandings with Germany andRussia”.2)

The various plans for attack produced by Pilsudski, but also by the ForeignMinister, Beck, in the years 1919 to 1939 (three in the year 1933 alone!) arehistorically indisputable. Even Vansittart, the long-standing highest official at theBritish Foreign Office, confirmed their authenticity.3) In fact, one would routinelyplay down these plans of aggression by such defused propaganda terms as“preventative war plans”, but these “preventative war plans” presuppose a priorknowledge of an aggressive intention of the enemy, which Germany during theyears 1919-1939 did not harbour. Poland was fully aware that Germany, neither atthe time of the Weimar Republic nor in the Third Reich, was contemplating militaryaction against Poland, indeed would not even have been in a position to contemplatesuch; after all, the German nation was at first still fettered in the chains of Versailles,and Germany seemed to appear, in Warsaw’s opinion, totally unprepared for ageneral war, even in 1939; so that finally the Warsaw strategy envisaged, from thefirst day of war onwards, to march on Berlin, without ever taking into considerationany defensive measures whatsoever.

Former Chancellor of the Reich and, after the Second World War, pro-Communist politician Dr. Joseph Wirth, stated at one of the “Nuremberg war crimestrials”:

“Every German government between 1918 and 1933 and the German HighCommand were filled with worry for the continued existence of the Reich,which they saw threatened within the sphere of both domestic and foreignpolicies. Already in the first years straight after the World War, Poland hadrepeatedly been trying to forcibly partition off territories from the Reich. Thefear of further attacks was not altogether unfounded. Polish nationalist circleswere demanding further cessions of lands… Yet our German army was onlypitifully armed. Chancellor of the Reich, Dr. Brüning, and the Reichsministerof Defence, Gröner, therefore decided to evacuate Silesia in the event of anattack by Poland. Those who, in view of these facts, still insist that we wouldhave had the intention to take the offensive are to be pitied. In the face of allthe provocations by Poland we remained calm and composed. In view of themiserable situation on the German eastern frontiers it is obvious that abetterment in the military-political situation would have been sought. Nothingwas further from our thoughts as South German Catholic Democrats than hatred

2) D. Hoggan, ibid., pp. 44-47.3) R.G. Vansittart, The Mist Procession, pp. 412, 468, 478.


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of Poland. Yet we were the ones, my friends and I, who had the most bitterexperiences with the Poles.” 4)

The former Chancellor of the Reich, Professor Heinrich Brüning, in a letter toDr. Rudolf Pechel from the year 1947, published in the review DeutscheRundschau:

“The failure of the League of Nations – neglecting to take action againstthe Japanese occupation of Manchuria in the autumn of 1931 – in connectionwith a new political plan for mobilization, on which we were informed in thesame year by a Foreign Power, increased General von Schleicher’s uneasinessmore and more. The Polish plan of mobilization was designed in such a waythat there was no doubt whatsoever about the firm intention to take the wholeof Silesia in a surprise coup.” 5)

From 6 to 15 March 1933 Poland yet again – and not for the last time – massedtroops in Posen-West Prussia, so that they could at any moment be used for anadvance against Danzig, East Prussia and Silesia, just as Marshal Pilsudski, “alreadyin peacetime, would leave half of his army behind at the German-Polish border”.6)

The three German infantry divisions (in Königsberg, Stettin and Berlin) and thetwo cavalry divisions (in Frankfurt/Oder and Breslau) that were assigned to be thefirst to go into action at the German-Polish border, were facing five Polish corpscomposed of fifteen infantry divisions, as well as several army troops.6) Deploymentand operational plans, which had been worked out already in the year 1923 incollaboration with the French General Staff, were available. Since 1931, periodic“trial-mobilizations” were based on these plans7) that envisaged “offensive actionwith preventive characteristics”.6) Only the eventual refusal of the Frenchgovernment and “Poland’s fear of Soviet intervention” averted the many timesplanned “preventive war” against Germany.8) At the time of the Rhinelandoccupation in 1936 Poland was again on the verge of dealing to Germany adeathblow from the east – in spite of the fact that the German-Polish friendshipand Non-Aggression Pact had been in effect for the past two years! The “operationalstudy Germany’” which was – as mentioned previously – founded on “offensiveaction with preventive characteristics”, had been extended since 1938 by moreGeneral Staff endeavours with France.9)

4) Krupp-Prozeß Verteidigungsdokumentenbuch 2a Nr. 475) B. von Richthofen, Deutschland und Polen, p. 38.6) H. Roos, Polen und Europa, p. 6.7) ibid., p. 38.8) C. Höltje, Die Weimarer Republik und das Ostlocarno-Problem 1919–1934, p. 39; B. de Colonna,

Poland from the Inside, p. 387.9) H. Roos, op. cit., p. 338.


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While the “upstart political highwayman” 10) was busy “conspiring against worldpeace”,11) those responsible for the “peace-loving” Polish policy “were penetratedby an illusory optimism which had them believe they would be in Berlin just a fewweeks after the outbreak of war”.12) In the spring of 1939 Poland had alreadyissued the call-up for the troops and by the summer of 1939 had mobilized somany military units that later on, “at the general mobilization, the only units affectedwere those where the individuals could not be reached by public notices”.13) Thispartial mobilization was initiated by the Polish Foreign Minister Beck on 23 March1939 for no reason whatsoever and was thereafter steadily expanded; straightaway it brought 334,000 additional soldiers into the ranks and gradually doubledthe strength of the standing Polish army. In the course of this mobilization and thesimultaneously distributed plan of operation the Polish army was deployed allalong the German border, where it remained until the outbreak of the war.14) Theplan of operation which was intended to launch a drive on Berlin directly upon theoutbreak of hostilities and, expecting an essentially unhindered advance, was nevermodified up to the outbreak of war. It is of significance that Hitler was acquaintedwith it before the outbreak of war.

That this type of strategy was to be taken very seriously should be clear fromseveral indications:

Those who are aware of how disastrous were the repercussions of the Russianmobilization of 1914 and the Czech mobilization of 20 May 1938 on the Europeannations must fully realize the consequences and the responsibility of a mobilizationonce again. Mobilization means war. To the Polish partial mobilization of 23 March1939 was added decisive pressure in the fact that Foreign Minister Beck – and onhis instigation on 26 March his Ambassador in Berlin, Lipski – rebuffed the Germanproposal for negotiations of October 1938 with a threat of war.15) Hitler was givento understand in rather provocative fashion that further endeavours with regard toDanzig and improved through traffic regulations across the “Corridor” would resultin a Polish declaration of war. Beck repeated to the German Ambassador, vonMoltke, on the evening of 28 March 1939 this threat of war and added that onewould “in future hold Germany responsible for every action attempted by theDanzig Senate”.16) This, given Danzig is a “Free City”!

A few months later Poland stated in a note (of 10 August) that every further

10) Post-war terminology for Hitler.11) Charges of the IMT-Nuremberg brought against Hitler and the NSDAP.12) W. Hofer, Die Entfesselung des Zweiten Weltkrieges, pp. 71, 76.13) ibid., p. 128.14) D. Hoggan, op. cit., pp. 317-321.15) “German White Book” No. 2, doc. 208: 26 March 1939.16) ibid., doc. 211.


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expression of interest by Germany with regard to Danzig would be seen as a causefor war.17)

On 25 March 1939 the British Ambassador in Warsaw, Kennard, admitted thatmany foreign diplomats in Warsaw believed that Poland was after provoking awar. Kennard telegraphed to his Foreign Minister word for word:

“The calling up of reservists has, I believe, gone considerably beyond thenumbers mentioned in my telegram No. 79. A competent authority put numbersunder arms at 750,000. This, coupled with the precautionary measuresmentioned in Danzig telegram No. 7 (not printed), suggests the thought thatMr. Beck intends to start discussions about Danzig at a moment chosen byhimself…

I was much struck by statements made both by Mr. Beck and the Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs (my telegrams…) that the Danzig question mustbe discussed soon.

I do not share the alarmist views of some of my colleagues that the PolishGovernment intends to force an issue with Germany.” 18)

A few hours later in another telegram:

“The Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs said that any German ultimatum orany encroachment on the Corridor would of course mean war… Public opinionhere at present was bellicose and prepared to support the Government in anydefence of vital interests…

He mentioned that he had to attend a discussion on foreign affairs inParliament yesterday where he had been badly heckled. He felt generally thatMr. Beck was in an extremely difficult position. He had of course to makeevery effort to avoid a situation which might entail war but, on the other hand,he had to take into consideration the degree of feeling which had been arousedin Poland by recent events on both her southern and northern frontiers.” 19)

The German Ambassador in Warsaw reported to Berlin on 28 March 1939:

“The excitement which has prevailed for some time in Poland has increasedconsiderably. The wildest rumours are current among the population… Ofgraver significance is the development of a pro-war feeling which is beingfostered by the press, by anti-German public demonstrations, especially in the

17)“Polish White Book” – Official Documents concerning Polish-German and Polish-SovietRelations 1933-1939, doc. 86.

18) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 523.19) ibid., vol. IV, doc. 524.


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provinces, which have already led to numerous incidents, and partly also bysabre-rattling semi-official propaganda. The bulk of the population todaybelieves that war has become inevitable and imminent.

The practical measures adopted by the government help to aggravate theexisting war psychosis.

A frequently reprinted article, entitled ‘We are prepared’, which appearedin the military paper, Polska Zbrojna, is particularly characteristic of the styleof the official preparedness propaganda. This article states that the Poles, unlikethe Czechs, had no feeling of inferiority as regards the powerful nations of theworld. The number of foreign divisions did not frighten the Poles, for theirown army, its fine equipment, and the heroic spirit of the Polish nation wouldbe sufficient to assure victory to Poland. Numerous other articles which havesince been appearing in the daily press are written in the same spirit.

Given the Polish national character, this self-assurance and over-estimationof their military strength expressed in the press constitute a danger. That this isnot merely press propaganda is proved by an authenticated remark made byM. Gluchowski, Vice-Minister for War, in the course of a serious conversation.He stated that Germany’s armed forces were one big bluff, for she lackedtrained reserves with which to bring her units up to full strength. When askedwhether he seriously believed Poland to be superior to Germany from a militarypoint of view, M. Gluchowski answered: ‘Why, certainly’.” 20)

Colonel Beck was aware that his military policy as well as the acceptance andreciprocal extension of the British blank cheque represented a provocation whichmight lead to an armed conflict with Germany. This intention is shown in theBritish and American documents on Beck’s talks in London in early April 1939,as well as in the extensive diplomatic correspondence, and not least as revealed inthe 1939 guidelines as followed by Polish policy.

“Polish diplomacy in 1938-1939 was a design for disaster.

Beck had now pushed Poland far down the road to war and nationaldestruction. Such a policy pointed directly to disaster.” 21)

On 18 May 1939 in Paris, Polish Minister of War General Kasprzycki repliedto the French General Staff’s question as to whether his fortifications at the German-Polish border would be able to withstand an attack as follows:

“We do not have any, as we intend to wage mobile warfare and to invadeGermany right from the outset of the fighting.” 22)

20) “German White Book” No. 2, doc. 210.21) C. Tansill, Back Door to War, pp. 510, 514.22) G. Bonnet, Fin d’une Europe. De Munich à la Guerre, p. 222 (German ed., p. 224).


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With regard to this probability, France gave her ally the assurance during theseGeneral Staff discussions at a military convention that they would overrunGermany’s western frontier in a strategic push, at the latest fifteen days after theoutbreak of war. But that was not all. Poland received the disputed Danzigratification in this wording:

“In the event of a German attack on Poland or in the event of Poland’s vitalinterests in Danzig being threatened so as to provoke armed action by Poland,the French army will automatically go into action with her various units.” 22)

That the French pledge was also contemplated with the ulterior motive of nowfirmly committing Poland to the concept of the Western Powers cannot be denied.

“But this [promise by France within the framework of the militaryconvention] was just words, designed to discourage any talks between Polandand Germany.” 23)

If a disinterested person could judge like this in retrospect, so doubtless theFrench Foreign Minister would have had, at that time, still ringing in his ears theview or rather the advice of his Ambassador Noël, transmitted by him from Warsawon 31 May 1938:

“To dissolve the French-Polish alliance would amount, without anyadvantage and equivalent whatsoever, to surely driving this country, for a verylong time to come, into the arms of Germany…

It would mean relinquishing that which could, in spite of everything else,be in certain instances a decisive trump card in our game. At the same time,Rumania would be removed from our alliance-system completely as a counter-reaction. The geographical position of Poland, the liking that most of the Poleshave for France, their military traditions, are just so many reasons that shouldspur us on to save what can still be saved of the alliance. That would make itmore difficult for Poland to get closer to the Reich so as to submit completely.Then we shall have less trouble, when circumstances become more favourable,to lead Poland back to our views.” 24)

On 20 July 1939, the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish army, Marshal Smigly-Rydz, stated in an official communiqué of the Polish telegraph agency:

23) D.M. Projektor, “The War in Europe 1939-1941” (Russian), p. 35.24) G. Bonnet, Défense de la Paix. De Washington au Quai d’Orsay, p. 138 (German ed., p. 44).


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“Danzig is essential to Poland. Whoever controls Danzig controls oureconomic life…

An occupation of Danzig by Germany would remind us of the partitions ofPoland. For this reason I ordered a mobilization four months ago when theGerman Chancellor renewed his demands concerning Danzig and Pomorze[i.e. the Corridor]. Please believe me when I say that this mobilization was nomere demonstration. We were ready far war then in case of necessity... evenshould she [Poland] have to fight alone and without allies.” 25)

The deluded confidence of the Polish leadership to be standing in Berlin afterjust a few days into the war is frequently confirmed:

“The national holiday [in Warsaw] was celebrated with a big military parade,and the fanatical masses were hailing each new military unit parading past,chanting in chorus:

‘Let’s go to Danzig!’‘On to Berlin!’The speakers at the meetings often declare openly that the German demands

for an interconnecting link with East Prussia and the return of Danzig to EastPrussia would have to be answered with war. The ridiculous German armymade up of the underfed generation of the Versailles Treaty, with their stupidcardboard dummy tanks, would be totally thrashed in Berlin. The Germanarmy − so one of the speaker’s play on words goes − would be utterly destroyedin the Berlin Grunwald (green forest), just as the army of the Teutonic Knights(Deutschen Ritterordens) was defeated in 1410 near Grunwald (the Polishname for Tannenberg).” 26)

On 15 August 1939 the Polish Ambassador in Paris, Lukasiewicz, declared tothe French Foreign Minister Bonnet:

“It will be the Polish army that will be invading Germany on the first dayof war.” 27)

On 26 August 1939 the American Ambassador in Moscow, Joseph E. Davies,wrote:

“One of the most prominent officials under Beck, Minister…, stated tome, positively, that his government would not tolerate proposals that Poland

25) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VI, doc. 368. The News Chroniclepublished an identical interview from Smigly-Rydz already on 19 July 1939; see A. Buckreis,Politik des 20. Jahrhunderts, p. 193.

26) K. Zentner, Illustrierte Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges, p. 66.27) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, vol. III, p. 90; G. Bonnet, op. cit.,

p. 277 (German ed., p. 252).


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and Germany should get together and compose their difficulties over theCorridor and Danzig…

He expressed himself as being disgusted with what he called the commonexaggeration of Germany’s military power. His government, he said, wouldshow them up to the world; within three weeks after the outbreak of war Polishtroops would be in Berlin; the “West Wall” or “Siegfried Line” was nothingbut a “cotton line”. Poland did not need Russian aid; they could handle theGermans alone and easily.” 28)

The same from the Polish Ambassador in Berlin, Lipski, on the 31 August1939 to the counsellor of legation at the British Embassy in Berlin, Ogilvie-Forbes:

“He [Lipski] stated that he was convinced that unrest would break out inGermany in the event of war and that the Polish army would successfully marchon Berlin.” 29)

“…this plan [Hitler’s proposal of 29 August 1939] was a breach of Polishsovereignty and was quite out of the question. He had had many yearsexperience of Germany. He would stake his reputation in his conviction thatGerman morale was breaking and that the present regime would soon crack…This German offer was a trap. It was also a sign of weakness on the part of theGermans which was confirmed by the ambassador’s appreciation of thesituation.” 30)

Such an attitude – which was maintained by the Poles even after the conclusionof the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact – could not fail to have certainconsequences, especially since Polish foreign policy was aligned with suchillusions.

“There are several reasons for the achievement of the German victoriouscampaign [‘the 18-days-campaign’], and nowadays one usually tends to concealthe first reason. This involved the planning by the Polish leadership. The mainbody of the Polish army was standing by not to defend but rather to attack.True to the slogans of the pre-war weeks: ready for attacking East Prussia.This attack involved the fact that the Polish government was relying on theguarantee promise of the Western Powers and, therefore, was expecting anattack on the western frontiers of Germany to hold down the Reich’s mainforces there. But the Western Powers did not attack, and so the German

28) J.E. Davies, Mission to Moscow, pp. 292-293.29) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 372.30) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 597.


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Wehrmacht in almost their entirety could be brought into action against Poland.The other reasons were the totally novel strategy of the German Wehrmachtand the modern weaponry on which this strategy was based.” 31)

These facts were withheld at the Allied Nuremberg trials of the so-called “warcriminals”. The victor was not interested in fitting these facts into the mosaic ofthe interconnected events on the eve of the Second World War, or rather, on theeve of the German-Polish conflict. The historian, on the other hand, must reflectupon them all in his assessment!

From “Munich” to the Outbreak of War

The foreign policy of Poland 1938-1939 was the same as her conception ofthe State and her strategy. Towards the end part of the year 1938 Poland removedherself from the position of being “prepared to co-operate with the Hitler-Reich”.1)

A steadily worsening crisis, whose peaceable settlement through negotiations wasrefused by Poland, was the consequence. Given this basic position, the Germannegotiation suggestions, even the one of 29 August 1939, which in principle wentno further than that of 24 October 19382), were really proposals for calling anarmistice, for

“A state of half-war amounting to a kind of armistice had existed in Europesince March, and by July we were drifting rapidly towards war.” 3)

Foreign Minister Beck had shown himself willing, in October 1938, to negotiatewith Hitler about Danzig and about improving the connection between Berlin andKönigsberg.*) Nevertheless, he deliberately delayed the start of these unwelcomenegotiations, for he wished to wait-and-see with regards to the British armamentand wanted to thwart an international conference. The fact that as yet no alliancewith Britain had been realized was not a reason for Beck to withdraw fromnegotiations with the Reich. Not only that, but he was challenging Germany withhis threat of war, the partial mobilization, the plans for an offensive, the renewedintensified pressure on the German minority and the announcement that Germany

31) K. Zentner, op. cit., p. 74. 1) “Polish White Book”, p. 5. 2) According to Polish propaganda, Poland would be expecting a Polish victory in a referendum in

West Prussia. 3) N. Henderson, Failure of a Mission, p. 245, D. Hoggan, The Forced War, p. 741 (German ed.). *) The reasons for holding German-Polish talks are dealt with separately.


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in future would be held fully responsible for every action taken by the DanzigSenate (23, 26 and 28 March 1939), even before the conclusion of thisunconditional guarantee, so that he could demonstrate his independent Great-Power-policy. Of course, since August and also September 1938 did Beck havethe assurance ‘in the bag’ that Great Britain would support Poland ‘as much aspossible’ at Danzig.4) At the same time there was also in evidence, since the end ofthe year 1938/1939, an unrestricted sympathy for Poland from the Americangovernment, whose diplomats “also probably influenced” Poland.5) The rejectionof the German negotiation proposal of 26 March 1939 was deliberately provocative,since there was no cause whatsoever for answering this with war-threats,mobilization, aggravated minority policies, with the “awakening of the anti-Germanmood among the Polish people of every social strata and circle” 6) and, lastly, tounderline it with the acceptance of a British carte-blanche.

The assertion that Hitler’s entry into Prague on 15 March 1939 was responsiblefor this response is demonstrably false. The Polish leadership, “the only one not tohave issued a formal protest against the annexation of Czecho-Slovakia”,6) did notconsider the establishment of the protectorate – done with the approval of the Czechgovernment! – as being a threat to Poland. Indeed, they were the ones who hadnever believed in the viability of Czecho-Slovakia and, in addition, it was theywho were working towards the further partitioning of this State with their claimsand ultimata after the Munich conference, and who were defending a commonborder with Hungary.7) Already on 27 October 1938 the German Ambassador inWarsaw, von Moltke, had informed the Foreign Minister of the Reich:

“As I have already stated in report PV 47 of October 14 1938, Poland istrying to induce Slovakia to break away from the political union in which shehas been joined until now.” 8)

Foreign Minister Beck expressed satisfaction with the eventual independenceobtained by Slovakia and announced his recognition of this country under nationallaw already on 15 March 1939.9)

Therefore, when adopting her measures against Germany on 26 March 1939,Poland did not even refer to Germany’s actions with regard to Prague; to do sowould have meant a realistic assessment of German power, which was not inexistence in Poland right up to the outbreak of war. The Polish leadership, on the

4) D. Hoggan, The Forced War, pp. 61-62,111.5) H. Roos, Polen und Europa, p. 395.6) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, vol. II, p. 43.7) G. Bonnet, Fin d’une Europe. De Munich à la Guerre, p. 249 (German ed., p. 41).8) Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945, vol. V, doc. 87.9) ADAP, vol. VI, doc. 4.


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contrary, was citing time and time again Hitler’s desire for peace, Hitler’s perceptionof the Bolshevik danger and Hitler’s military weakness as so many reasons whytheir provocations bore no risk whatsoever. Beck, during a conversation withRumanian Foreign Minister Gafencu in March 1939:

“Unlike all his predecessors, Hitler is aware of the reality of the Bolshevikdanger. He has always been fighting it. I know that precisely this is for Hitler’snew Germany the pivotal, the principal and the decisive problem, besides whichall other problems pale into insignificance. How then does it follow from thisfor Germany to be interested in fighting against Poland? Once the Polish bastionfalls, then the gateway of Europe will be open to Soviet expansion. Is thissupposed to be what Hitler wants? I know that he does not! Of course he wantsDanzig back, but he would not be prepared to pay such a price in order to gainthe Free City.” 10)

Beck’s intention in the negotiations with Ribbentrop from October 1938onwards were to hold out hopes for a review more along the lines of the Germanproposals and yet refrain absolutely from making any concessions. This stance,which eventually reached a temporary climax with the threat of war, themobilization, the heightened pressure on the minorities and with the acceptanceof the British blank cheque in March 1939, had just as little to do with the subjectmatter of the German proposals as it did with the German handling of thenegotiations or indeed with German policy as such. Even the “Polish White Book”on the immediate pre-war period confirms this:

“The Polish government, like the Governments of the other States who,down till 1938 inclusive, were prepared to co-operate with the Hitler Reich,acted on the assumption that they must neglect nothing which might preserveEurope from war.” 11)

This statement establishes unequivocally that Poland and England changedtheir attitude towards Germany at the end of 1938; they declined – to put it mildly,as in the words of this Polish statement – from this time on, any further collaborationwith the German Reich and accepted “oversights and neglects” in the peace efforts,insofar as these “neglects”, anyway, were to have been their new foreign policybaseline! The result, in any case, was that “many foreign diplomats in Warsaw seethat public opinion here at present is bellicose and believe that the PolishGovernment intends to force an issue with Germany”.12) Already on 16 March

10) G. Gafencu, Derniers Jours de l’Europe, pp. 56-57.11) “Polish White Book”, p. 5.12) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 524 and 523.


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1939 the French Ambassador in Warsaw, Noël, reported to his Foreign Minister:

“On the other hand, nobody could fail to notice the increase of anti-Germansentiment amongst Poles of the most diverse social classes and circles ofsociety.” 13)

Beck accepted the British blank cheque on 31 March 1939 and on 5 April1939 made a reciprocal offer of help to Great Britain, irrespective of whateveraction Great Britain – apart from an attack on the British Isles – was to regard asa threat to her vital interests and to which she would respond with military measures.What had induced the Polish Foreign Minister to go down this foolhardy road,when he, for his part, had rejected London’s demands: the collaboration with theUSSR, the accepting of Soviet arms for the eventuality of a war, the conclusion ofa military alliance with Rumania against Germany and Hungary?

Beck had come to realize

“that the method by which Britain had handled this matter had made itthree times easier to get Poland to agree to almost anything Britain wanted.”14)

Beck knew that Hitler had not threatened him and “did not believe that Germanyhad any offensive intentions”.15) Beck assumed that Hitler was not going to threatenPoland in future either, as he

“basically was a timid Austrian who would not risk war against a determinedand strong opponent.” 14)

Beck stressed in his London talks from 4-6 April 1939 that there was “akind of a lull at the moment”, since “after the recent events the Germangovernment was to have been taken back by the reaction that they had createdin the world”16) (cf. establishment of the Bohemia and Moravia protectorateon 15 March 1939). Beck knew that his policy must “make Hitler and all hischiefs furious”. He was, nonetheless, counting on Hitler dispatching “with allthe tokens of friendliness” his Foreign Minister to Warsaw, whom only recentlyBeck had chosen to portray as a “dangerous fool”. Given the prevailingsituation, Beck was convinced that he himself could then decide “the limits of

13) “French Yellow Book” – Le Livre Jaune Français, Documents Diplomatiques 1938-1939,doc. 75.

14) Foreign Relations of the United States 1939, vol. I, pp.113,118,119.15) G. Bonnet, op. cit., p. 172 (German ed., p. 196).16) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. II, p. 118.


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the negotiations” or when to trigger off the war that “would have Germanyfounder”. Beck was

“more than happy to have England’s support given in the way that it was, i.e.that Poland is the one to determine when England is to come to her rescue.” 17)

The fears already expressed by the British Ambassador in Warsaw on 5 October1938

“that recent events will encourage him [Beck] still further to ignore anypressure or advice from us,” 18)

were to become more and more realized. In Beck’s view, the impetus behindthe political development of Europe ought to be given to Poland, as befitting aEuropean Great Power. Beck wanted to make the conditions, and he was not sparingin his threats of war already at the time before the British guarantee. This manwith “the less statesmanlike aspects of his character, including his personal ambitionand vanity”,19) who believed “that Poland had nothing to lose by the threat ofdirect action”,20) had found the partner who, without any scruples, gave him freerein to pursue this course!

Plainly, this was incitement to war, which did not even have to use the argumentsof an “aggressive” or “lusting-after-world-domination” or, in general, the “war-willing” Hitler. Quite the opposite. Beck started from the assumption that Hitlerdid not want war, that he could not even afford a war and, for this reason, wouldswallow provocations of the most evil kind from the “determined” and willing-to-fight Poland and still have to dispatch “with all the tokens of friendliness” hisForeign Minister to Warsaw! Britain, having full knowledge of the underlyingmotives and the balance of power, was lending a helping hand in this undertaking,already many months before the continually intensifying German-Polish tensionreached the climax. It represents a singularly unparalleled cynicism to then speak,after the outbreak of war, of “protection of the smaller nations”, of Christianityand of the “obligation of the alliance in fighting the aggressor threatening Europeand the world”.

The unceasing British encouragement, already before the guarantee, was evenrecognized by Polish diplomats as a resolution for war:

17) Foreign Relations of the United States 1939, vol. I, p. 113.18) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. III, doc. 137.19) ibid., vol. III, doc. 206.20) ibid., vol. III, doc. 206.


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“It is childishly naive, and at the same time unfair, to propose to a nationwhich is in such a position as Poland that she should compromise her relationswith so powerful a neighbour as Germany and to expose the world to thecatastrophe of a new war, only for the gratification of Mr. Chamberlain’s internalpolicies. It would be still more naive of them to presume that the PolishGovernment did not understand the real meaning of this manoeuvre and itsconsequences.” 21)

This serious charge was made by the Polish Ambassador in Paris, Lukasiewicz,on 29 March 1939 in a report to his Minister for Foreign Affairs. This statement,which is not the only one,22) is an unmistakable proof that Poland had beenencouraged, already before Britain’s carte blanche, to compromise their relationswith Germany and to unleash a war. The Polish government quickly became expertat this language.

“Straight after the British guarantee-declaration, which was followedimmediately by the French guarantee, there began in Poland a malicious anti-German rabble-rousing… Demands for the occupation of the city of Danzigappear in Polish newspapers.

So it continues. The Polish army is to march into East Prussia and to annexthis part of Germany. Other papers claim even more: the borders of Polandhave to be pushed forward to the Oder. At public meetings, there are demandsmade which border on lunacy. Not the Oder but the Elbe is Poland’s Westernborder. Berlin is not a German city, but an ancient Slavic one, an ancient Polishsettlement! Poland starts off with partial mobilization, large posters appear onthe walls of houses: ‘Let’s go to Berlin!’” 23)

Beck carried on compromising himself: In his note of 26 March 1939 to theReich Foreign Minister he had described any further handling of the German mattersof concern in Danzig as a reason for war, and at the beginning of April hecommunicated this to his interlocutors in London.24) Beck, who yet on 20 April1939 had ascertained in his briefings to the Polish diplomats abroad that althoughby now the reciprocal British-Polish guarantee had come into force “no sign ofany haste on the part of Germany” was in evidence but, on the other hand, that a“new wave of rumours” 25) had been noticed, was giving a speech on the 5 May1939, thus only a few days later, in the Sejm which – as it was dishonest and was

21) “German White Book” No. 3, doc. 11, p. 102 ( English ed. p.30).22) See also p. 295 seq. of this work.23) K. Zentner, Illustrierte Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges, p. 64.24) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 579: Kennard to Halifax on 31

March 1939.25) W. Jedrzejewicz, Poland in the British Parliament 1939-1945, vol. I, pp. 41, 42.


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misrepresenting the actual state of affairs – was bound to appear like an outrightdeclaration of war. With this talk he ultimately rejected any agreement, in whateverform. Beck’s utterance, “We in Poland do not recognize the conception of ‘peaceat any price’ ”, could hardly have been more cynical and war-minded, given therecent German-Polish negotiations and the German readiness to reach anagreement. Apart from the untrue assertion that Germany was only making demandswithout giving anything in return, there is also the following characteristic portrayalof Beck’s aggressive posturing, albeit historically falsified:

“I insist on the term ‘province of Pomorze’. The word ‘Corridor’ is anartificial invention, for this is an ancient Polish territory with an insignificantpercentage of German colonists.” 26)

Polish public opinion reacted to this speech with enthusiasm. Beck received awhole pile of congratulatory telegrams. He was fully aware, as was the Polishmilitary, of the course of direction that this speech was unequivocally announcing:

“that two relatively poor countries, Germany and Poland, should fight oneanother − a development which, after all, could be in the interest of the richcountries alone.” 27)

“When in the spring of 1939 the policy of settlement with Germany that he[Beck] stood for collapsed, Beck nevertheless remained in office, and heexperienced his biggest popularity among the Polish people just at that momentwhen, in his speech of 5 May 1939, he dealt the final blow to his previouspolicy.” 28)

The unconditional guarantee given by Great Britain had “blinded the Polishleadership to the practical advantages of an understanding with Germany”. Hitlerhad never put any pressure on Poland, nor hinted at such, had not set any deadlinesand did not make any unreasonable demands. Hitler’s policy at that time could belikened to a kind of “lull”, according to Beck’s own statement in London. Yet, thePolish Foreign Minister placed himself at the head of the anti-German and war-eager Polish public, dispatched inflammatory and false rumours to othercountries,29) and he did nothing to prevent or to restrict the excesses of his fellow-countrymen.

26) ibid., p. 48, and “Polish White Book”, doc. 77, p. 112.27) “German White Book” No. 2, doc. 216.28) Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 1/1954, p. 88: G. Rhode, “Außenminister Joseph Beck

und Staatssekretär Graf Szembek”.29) Foreign Relations of the United States 1939, vol. I, p. 101.


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“The outbreak of war on 1 September 1939 is now seen in Poland as atotally undeservedly endured attack by the powerful German neighbour, like abolt out of the blue, as it were, falling on an unsuspecting land, forgettingcompletely, however, that since March of that year Poland had been in a stateof a continually rising warlike atmosphere, that in the numerous articles andletters from readers appearing in newspapers war was strongly desired, thatowing to certain actions, such as the volunteering for a commando unit of‘human torpedoes’ (after a misunderstood Japanese model) and talks given byPolish officers praising the qualities of the Polish soldiers to the sky whiledefining the German equipment as inferior, the belief in an assured victorywas created, with dreams of a quick march on Berlin.” 30)

Nothing remotely similar would have been found in Germany in 1939! Therewas not one German politician, not one German diplomat, not one German general,not one German publicist, who considered the question of “war or peace” asunimportant. To the Polish Ambassador in Paris, Lukasiewicz, however – and toPolish diplomacy in general – this question was one of indifference. The FrenchForeign Minister, Bonnet, came to realize this when he was trying to explain toLukasiewicz the significance of the British-French-Soviet military talks.31)

“We are not afraid of anything. Russia will not let Germany touch us;Germany will prevent Russia from doing us any harm.” 32)

At the conference of 24 March 1939, attended by the Foreign Minister, theoutline of Polish foreign policy was established, whereby, if the “perimeter of ourdirect interests and our normal needs” was to be impaired – “we will fight”.*)

This denial of any fear whatsoever, already apparent in early 1937 in remarksmade by the Polish President, Ignacy Mosciki, was to acquire aggressive undertonesin 1939 to such a point that the Polish leadership showed scant regard for “worldopinion” while they demonstrated their intended goals, and even the few well-meaning pieces of advice proffered from a friendly side were arrogantly rebuffedduring the last days and hours before the outbreak of war.

So not without reason was a telegram sent on 2 April 1939 (shortly beforeBeck’s visit to London) by the British Ambassador in Warsaw to his ForeignMinister:

30) G. Rhode, “Die deutsch-polnischen Beziehungen und ihre neuralgischen Punkte” in West-OstBerichte II/III, 1961, p. 97.

31) G. Bonnet, De Munich à la Guerre, p. 277 (German ed., Vor der Katastrophe, p. 252).32) C.J. Burckhardt, Meine Danziger Mission 1937-1939, p. 353. *) C.J. Szembek, Journal 1933-1939, p. 434.


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“The chief difficulty is that the Polish Government has hitherto failed toeducate public opinion on the lines that any concessions are necessary.” 33)

Nevertheless, no conclusions were drawn from this in London for the preser-vation of peace.

On 17 May 1939, the representatives of France and Poland concluded a militaryagreement by which the French General Staff committed themselves to breakthrough the “Siegfried Line” on the fifteenth day after the outbreak of war. Withthis was the Polish aspiration “for a mobile campaign with the invasion of Germanyand the advance on Berlin”,34) brought closer to complete fulfilment. The FrenchForeign Minister, Bonnet, also came to realize the Polish intentions the day thatthe Polish Ambassador, Lukasiewicz, had urged him to incorporate the secret clause– that “Danzig is of vital importance to Poland” – into the agreement that was tobe concluded. Bonnet wrote about this in his memoirs:

“It seemed to me that Beck’s subtle game was to exploit the French-Britishalliance by forcing from one of us, with the help of the other, ever more extensiveand more precise obligations.” 35)

The crisis was approaching a climax, and yet the Polish government refused todiscuss a settlement:

“The Poles faced the approaching crisis imperturbably, confident that Hitlerwould be exposed as an aggressor and that the justified grievances of Danzigwould then be forgotten.” 36)

On 13 June 1939, the British Ambassador in Berlin, Henderson, recommen-ded that Poland should

“… talk a little less about her bravery and think a little more about therealities of her geographical position.” 37)

The High Commissioner of the League of Nations in Danzig, Carl J. Burckhardt,wrote on the 26 July 1939 to the General Secretary of the League, Joseph Avenol:

“A dangerous mood is beginning to emerge among the Poles. Frequently ithas been admitted or, even worse, openly stated that a general war would

33) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV doc. 605.34) D.J. Dallin, Soviet Russia’s Foreign Policy, p. 36.35) G. Bonnet, op. cit., p. 220 (German ed. p. 223).36) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 249.37) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VI, p. 702.


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mean the only salvation for the Republic. What is particularly dangerous isthat people have begun to get used to the idea that a catastrophe is inevitable;exaggerated statements are made, and the end result is a kind of emotionalpoisoning in this unfortunate city. There was arriving a stream of camp-followersas the bringers of bad tidings and an omen of foreboding who frequently wereonly interested in intensifying the crisis, either by personal interventions in thelocalized quarrel or by fanciful reports.” 38)

But England was already fully aware of this development! After the BritishCabinet had drawn up a statement on the British policy with regard to Poland,which was to be announced by Mr. Chamberlain in the House of Commons,

“Beck asked Halifax [on 5 July] to omit the compromising phrase in whichhe said that the Polish Government ‘would approach such conversations (withGermany) objectively but with good will’. The phrase was omitted whenChamberlain spoke in the Commons on July 10.” 39)

A travel report that was written by two British diplomats on 9 June 1939 to bepresented to their then Foreign Minister, Lord Halifax, has now, after forty years,been made available to the public by the Foreign Office. The writers were SirWilliam Strang, at the time Head of department dealing with Germany-EasternEurope at the Foreign Office in London and Gladwyn Jebb, private Secretary tothe Permanent Under-Secretary of State, also at the British Foreign Office. Althoughthe report was drawn up by the lower ranking Jebb and then approved by Strang,the observations recorded in it represented, nevertheless, a combined contribution.The title of the account is “Visit of Mr. Strang and Mr. Jebb to Poland” and isinitialled with the date of 13 June 1939 by Kirkpatrick, the official in charge ofsuch matters.

Gladwyn Jebb wrote:

“What struck me most was the apparent calm and confidence of the Poleswith whom I talked. I think some were over-confident, and ignorant of thevery real dangers of an attack by the disciplined and mechanized Germandivisions. H.M. Vice-Consul at Kattowitz, for instance, told me that the localPolish officials had been ‘terribly uppish’ since our guarantee, and were talkingof a quick defeat of Germany and an occupation of Breslau. Again, the peasantson an estate south of Thorn, where I spent a most refreshing week-end, were (Iwas assured by the son of the house) longing to have a go at the Germans. Thiswas confirmed by the highly intelligent head of the Economics Department in

38) C.J. Burckhardt, op. cit., p. 318, and ADAP, vol. VI, doc. 771.39) M. Gilbert and R. Gott, The Appeasers, p. 247 and Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-

1939, vol. VI, doc. 236.


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the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Wszelaki, who said that the bellicosityand anti-Germanism of the peasants were due partly to racial and partly toeconomic reasons (increase in population, and consequent hunger for theGerman farmers’ land). Wszelaki, indeed, went so far as to say that, if warbroke out, he feared that a terrible massacre of the German-Polish peasantsmight be difficult to prevent. Further, it seems that the Polish peasants, whileremaining anti-Russian, are now less conscious of the Russian danger. Myfriends were not disposed to say that this would result in any return of pan-Slavism, but they admitted that in the long run, and in the face of continuedGerman pressure, something of the kind might result. ...

I cannot, of course, profess to know what the Polish Military are thinking.All I can say is that the Colonel to whom I sat next at dinner – principal assistantto General Stachiewitz, the Chief of the General Staff – was an intelligent andreasonable man. He admitted freely that the Polish army was deficient in somerespects, but was confident that, if necessary, they would acquit themselvesvery well. Partly from him and partly from other persons I gathered that theidea was to attack East Prussia at the outset of war, since the Germans wouldfind it very difficult to reinforce this province quickly and adequately. Moreover,it was capable of being attacked from many points simultaneously. The boostereffect of an occupation of Königsberg might, it was hoped, counterbalance aninevitable retreat from the Western salient. In any case, Poland would notnecessarily be defeated even if she withdrew to the line of the Vistula. And bythe time the Polish armies were back there the Germans, as well as the Poles,might well be running short of certain essential supplies. Emphasis tended tobe laid on the probability of a war in the East being an ‘open’ war with freedomof manoeuvre and that this might tend, in the early stages at least, to favour thePoles.

In order to draw my Polish friends I usually at a certain stage, asked themwhat they proposed to do with the Germans when the fortune of war had – asthey believed was probable – decided in their favour. No two persons gave thesame answer to this awkward question.

But the general line seemed to be that

Germany ought to be carved up into two or more pieces and that the largersection should be composed of a Southern and Catholic bloc, perhaps underthe Archduke Otto [von Habsburg]. In any case, there seemed to be a generalidea that East Prussia should be annexed by Poland. The second-in-commandof the Eastern section of the Foreign Office went indeed so far as to say definitelythat this was the Polish plan. He justified it on the grounds that the populationof East Prussia was declining; that much of it was really Polish anyhow; that inany case population transfers could be arranged; and that Poland as a youngand rapidly increasing State ought to have a coast-line commensurate with hernational importance.

But there is, unless I am wrong, a still larger and more shadowy project inexistence for Poland’s future after ‘a victorious war against Germany’. This isthe conception of a federal Poland, including Lithuania, with some form ofautonomy for the Ruthenians. Warsaw, in accordance with this dream, would


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be the centre of a huge agglomeration, the western frontiers of which might beextended almost to the Oder, and the southern march with a reconstitutedHungary. ...

There are few Poles in authority, I think, who are unconscious of the veryreal dangers of a war with Germany, and many seem to realize that this mightin fact mean a steady retreat into the interior of the country, which might quitewell not be counterbalanced by the occupation of East Prussia, where thestanding defences (apart from the present reinforcement difficulty) are verystrong. Their belief, however, is that in the general war which they believewould follow a German attack on Poland, Germany would be defeated in theend, and that the Polish Army, even if badly mauled, would then re-emergefrom the Pripet marshes or the ‘Jungle’ of Bialowieza and proceed to occupyGreater Poland in much the same circumstances as in 1919. Nor is this beliefin any way pathetic or fantastic. Poles point out, I think with justice, that theGerman situation, whether military, internal or economic, is far less strongthan the German propaganda machine would have us believe. They hold thatsome form of German collapse within a year of the outbreak of a general waris a very real possibility; and while they have no doubt that the Germans willfight extremely well in the initial stages, they are confident that the ring willhold and that the effect of a blockade will be noticeable far sooner than it wasin 1914-18...” *)

The British government had accepted and was resigned to the situation ofPoland not wanting to negotiate. Result: more war cries in Poland. Chodacki, thePolish Commissioner General in Danzig, was the man, who was representing Polishpolicy at the centre of German-Polish relations, and who spoke repeatedly aboutwar 40) as, for instance, at the time when Danzig would not let its population bestarved out of Danzig because the very livelihood of the Germans was threatenedwith ruin as a result of the pressure exerted by Poland and when, instead, Danzigwanted to open the border with East Prussia.

On 10 August, in the heavily censored Kurier Polski, it was written that

“Just as Carthage had to be destroyed 2,000 years ago, today more andmore voices are heard calling to put an end, once and for all, to Germany’scraving for power over the other nations in Europe. ... Ever more widespreadwas the general opinion in the land that “Carthage” must be destroyed. Thetime is fast approaching, when it will be universally held that the removal ofthe festering sore in the centre of Europe is a necessity. All that will be left ofGermany, then, will be only a heap of ruins.” 41)

*) Frankfurter Allgemeine, 31 August 1979, pp. 5-6, quotes newly published files from the BritishForeign Office, reference no. 0371/23020.

40) C. Burckhardt, op. cit., p. 322.41) A. Buckreis, Politik des 20. Jahrhunderts, pp. 127-128, 164-167, 231.


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This demand was not an isolated occurrence in the Polish pre-war press, rather,it was the basic tenor of a strongly censured journalism. When, in addition to this,noted spokesmen of this State were whipping up the people with unceasing war-mongering speeches and were openly proclaiming their annexationist goals, thenthis was considered as a policy of war! 41) The one to start the military advance bygiving the order first is not the one that can be branded as guilty for the war, butrather it is the one who, over a long period, has so geared his whole policy as toforce the opponent into military intervention, and who has already in the interiorof the country turned the hostilities against the foreign minorities into a permanentstate of affairs!

Carl J. Burckhardt, the High Commissioner of the League of Nations in Danzig,had stated in a report of 20 December 1938:

“The Poles have a bit of a mad streak. At midnight they start smashingtheir glasses. They are the only unhappy people in Europe longing for thebattlefield. They are thirsting for glory, and in that they know no bounds.

There is Mr. Beck, but there is also the army and a public opinion ready toexplode at any moment.” 42)

Roger Makins, British delegate of the League in Basel, reported on 11 June1939 about a conversation with Burckhardt:

“Mr. Burckhardt detected certain symptoms of Polish imperialism, andformed the impression that ultimate Polish aims were of wide scope.” 43)

The French Ambassador in Berlin, Coulondre:

“Their only salvation [of Poland and of Rumania] lay in preserving thepeace, but they made no move in the direction that would have been necessaryfor it.” 44)

The following from historians well-kown for their antagonism to Hitler:

“The history of Poland in the last few years before the Second World Waris a history of heroism and folly.

Also, increasingly Poland succumbed to an anti-German fervour.But still, it can hardly be denied that in every clash the Poles were always

adopting the fiercest reaction − apart from war − possible.” 45)

42) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 394, 401.43) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VI, doc. 36.44) R. Coulondre, De Staline à Hitler, p. 282 (German ed., p. 414).45) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 9.


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“By over-estimating her strength, Poland did not explore every avenuethat would avoid any violent confrontations.” 46)

“And Poland? In Poland, the fatal pact [with Britain] did not seem to makeany impression whatsoever. Poland persisted in defiant refusal [of talks withGermany], and the press was positively falling over themselves in expressingtheir appetite for war and German-hating. For example, an article appearing inthose days in a West Polish newspaper was comparing the forthcoming war toa football match. Sneeringly the German team was challenged. They weregoing to see what fighting meant to the Poles. Then the Danziger could watchtheir compatriots getting thrashed. The arresting of Germans continued, noinformation was given as to their whereabouts. There is no other way of sayingit: Poland did everything to provoke their neighbour to the limit, and therebystrengthen the will of their neighbour to war.

The most preposterous was a postcard depicting how the western borderof Poland in actual fact should have been running. It was running along theOder and the Neisse. Such an arrogance had to be taken as a direct threat ofwar on the German side. Amongst the Germans in Poland it provoked onlyridicule. Who could take this seriously? Who could have foreseen at that timethat one day this border would become reality?” 47)

The Polish leadership would take the initiative for constantly aggravating thecrisis in every conceivable sphere: in their foreign policy, with the mobilization,the military agreements with France, in the displacement of the minorities, in thecommunications sector including propaganda on radio and on billboards, in theirliterature, in the public appearance of leading speakers, in the actions taken againstDanzig, in the diplomatic snubbing of the German neighbour, in the increasinglyfrequent border violations (the Ilustrowany Kurjer of 7 August 1939 even featuredan article about a competition among Polish military units of destroying and seizingWehrmacht equipment on the other side of the border),48) in putting the troops onstand-by for attack, with official threats of war, in the order to Ambassador Lipski,issued at the height of the crisis, “ not to let himself get involved in any pertinenttalks”, and in the general mobilization which had already been announced the daybefore. The firing on the undefended German town of Beuthen with artillery duringthe night from 31 August to 1 September was as characteristic in this chain ofevents as was the incident of the sudden attack on the transmitting station inGleiwitz, although not a deciding factor. By the time of these lastly mentionedtwo incidents the die was already cast.

46) H. Buchheim, Das Dritte Reich – Grundlagen und politische Entwicklung, p. 47.47) Posener Stimmen (“Posen Comments”), Lüneburg, March 1964, pp. 2, 3.48) D. Hoggan, op. cit., p. 419.


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“In large sections of the Polish population there prevailed a confident warmood.

Poland did not even attempt to gain time.” 49)

The Polish course of action against Danzig and their conduct in the last daysof peace merit a separate account; yet this will merely complement and confirmthe whole attitude of Polish foreign policy in the year 1939 against Germany.

The Polish Course of Action against Danzig

“Poland’s constant efforts of trying to extend her authority in the Free Cityof Danzig, with the ultimate aim of revoking its autonomy, led to continualconflicts.” 1)

These “constant efforts” go back to the year 1919, and they are a part of theterritorial demands made by Poland. These were continuously intensified duringthe year 1939. According to a statement from the Polish Commissioner General inDanzig, Chodacki, “fifteen one thousand page volumes would be required todescribe the Danzig-Polish disputes” in the year 1939.2) Danzig, a city undisputedlydescribed as German also by the Polish government was, indeed, changed by theVersailles “treaty” into a “Free City” on the outside, but in reality little remainedof this “freedom”. These rights, which Poland had received ever since 1919 inDanzig, were so extensive that Warsaw exercised a decisive influence on theeconomy and thus on the political fate of the city: Poland represented Danzigabroad, consequently also in the League of Nations. Poland was represented inDanzig by an ambassador, Germany and other states by a consul at best. Polandcontrolled Danzig’s border including the one with East Prussia and also determinedthe customs tariffs according to her own discretion. Poland was maintaining twenty-three authorities besides her own post office. Poland administered the Danzigrailways and was responsible for the “national defence” of Danzig. Poland waskeeping on the Westerplatte, within the “Free City”-terrain, a military contingentand a munitions store.

The League of Nations, “protector” of the “Free City” and its constitution,authorized a High Commissioner, elected for a three-year term, who was to preventoutside encroachments and internal unrest or rather, to have these settled. Since

49) G. Rhode, Die Ostgebiete des Deutschen Reiches, p. 134. 1) C. Höltje, Die Weimarer Republik und das Ostlocarno-Problem 1919-1934, p. 43. 2) D. Hoggan, The Forced War, p. 63.


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their endeavours at mediation between Poland and Danzig, more often than not,broke down, so it was left up to the Council of the League in Geneva, as thehighest judicial authority, to deal with Danzig-matters at nearly all its sittings. Butthis Council of the League neither possessed an explicit authority nor did it havethe necessary power to carry through a constructive solution. In the summer of1936 it created a so-called “Committee of Three” whose members were the ForeignMinisters of England, France and Portugal (later of Sweden). Poland was, as“representative for the foreign affairs of the Free City”, also a member of thisCommittee. The attitude of the Polish representative led to a paradoxical situationalready at that time: “The roles of the League of Nations and that of Poland appearedto be reversed.” 3) This Committee of Three was to take over from the Council ofthe League all of the Danzig issues. The reality was that with the formation of thiscommittee England and France became more heavily involved in Danzig thanthey had been before. Henceforth, the official channels for the High Commissionerof the League ran directly to and fro between London and Paris. This arrangementwas unsatisfactory for all concerned. It is not surprising, therefore, that the HighCommissioners of the League in Danzig, without exception, were arguing for areadjustment of the local situation. By this they understood the re-integration ofDanzig into Germany, especially since the Polish pretext of needing a port hadbeen rendered invalid with the building and extension of Gdingen, with theeconomical strangling of Danzig and, furthermore, with the securing of a free portarea for Poland in Danzig. Count Manfredo Gravina, High Commissioner of theLeague from 1929 to 1932, had proposed during his term of office:

to link East Prussia to the Reich by extending the Danzig territory to the west; to empower the League of Nations, as the protector of Danzig, with the

necessary authority; to free Danzig from all restrictions imposed by Poland (railway, customs,

economy, foreign policy, etc.); to transfer Gdingen and the surrounding region, as well as a free port area in

Danzig, to Poland and to secure this arrangement with a guarantee from the Leagueof Nations.3)

C. J. Burckhardt had also described in the year 1937 and later on the return ofDanzig to Germany as imperative.4) But he too had to realize that he was powerlessto change the situation, and he was to admit that it had even been put to himprivately from a not unauthoritative party to dispense with his attempts ofappeasement in Danzig, as these were regarded as “harmful”.5) Since 1935, when

3) C.J. Burckhardt, Meine Danziger Mission 1937-1939, pp. 30-31, 26-27, 357.4) H. Roos, Polen und Europa, p. 296.5) C.J. Burckhardt, op. cit., p. 104.


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the Under State Secretary at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Warsaw, CountSzembek, made this entry in his diary:

“It would be in the interest of many people to see a worsening in the Polish-Danzig relations, Polish nationalists as well as Danziger Germans hostile toHitler, Jews and business men from the port of Gdingen…”,6)

the same groups have remained continuously active, in the sense as describedby Szembeck.

The proposal by Hitler made to Poland on 24 October 1938 was considerablymore modest than any of the previous Danzig demands from German and foreignpoliticians. It was conveyed – and this is confirmed by all the subsequently collecteddocuments! – with the sincere intention of placing relations with the Easternneighbour on a better and more secure footing. Hitler did neither threaten nor didhe even faintly hint at coercion, as a means for achieving his goals. There was noquestion, either, of any deadline. On the contrary, right up to the outbreak of war,Hitler repeatedly urged moderation on the Danzig Senate, while, nevertheless,making it quite clear, that Danzig had the protective support of the Reich.7)

It is a provable fact that Hitler intervened in the Danzig happenings only afterthe Polish ultimatum of 4 August 1939. This he did by

a) summoning Gauleiter Forster (the District head) to Berchtesgaden to makea report (10 August 1939), and he ordered to “avoid any fresh incident in Danzigso as not to aggravate matters there”;8)

b) asking Carl Burckhardt, the League of Nations High Commissioner inDanzig, for mediation;

c) advising Poland that Germany would not be tolerating to have Danzigsubjected to starvation or military occupation – this reaction was declared in aPolish statement from 10 August 1939, should it be to the detriment of Polishinterests, as an “act of aggression”.9)

“Hitler was not opposed to any of Poland’s further economic aspirations atDanzig, but he was resolved never to permit the establishment of a Polishpolitical regime at Danzig.” 10)

“The Sudeten Nazis, like the Austrians before them, built up the tension

6) J. Szembek, Journal 1933-1939, p. 112 – comprehensive review of this book in Nation Europa5/1959, p. 22.

7) ADAP, vol. VII, doc. 188. – On 22 August Hitler cancelled the planned visit to Danzig of thecruiser “Königsberg”.

8) “French Yellow Book”, doc. 188.9) “Polish White Book”, doc. 86.10) D. Hoggan, op. cit., p. 329 and 405.


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gradually without guidance from Hitler. In Danzig the tension was alreadycomplete; and Hitler, so far as he did anything, held the local Nazis back.” 11)

The Polish Foreign Minister, Beck, on the other hand, was pursuing his policyin Danzig “not for Danzig as such, but out of principle – Danzig has become akind of symbol”.12)

But what did this “principle-policy” that Poland followed in Danzig look like?Such is the opinion of the German Ambassador in Paris, Otto Abetz:

“The proposition of a ‘spontaneous’ awakening of Polish nationalism afterMunich does not bear close examination. The anti-German demonstrationsdemanding the Polish annexation of Danzig and East Prussia were taking placein by far too many and too thinly spread places, the boycott of German-speakingbusinesses was too well synchronized, the stone throwing at windows of theGerman embassy in Warsaw and the German consulate general in Thorn washappening too close together in time for any spontaneity to have been likely.”13)

With the backing from Great Britain, Warsaw was forcefully driving forwardher Polonizing campaign against Danzig. The initiative for aggravating matterslay, as so often since 1919, solely with Poland – and England was leading Poland“far up the garden path”.14) Foreign Minister Beck told a friend in his Rumanianexile, after the defeat of Poland in 1939:

“No one in his right mind can claim that Danzig was the cause of the war.”15)

The fact remains

“But he certainly had behaved in the critical months of 1939 as if Danzigwere really the issue.” 15)

The most significant of these measures:

11) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 248.12) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, vol. II, doc. 49, p. 122 – account of

Beck’s talks in London of 4 April 1939.13) O. Abetz, Das offene Problem, p. 101. – Abetz was appointed Ambassador in Paris after the

armistice in 1940.14) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 158: The British Ambassador

in Berlin to his Foreign Minister on 22 August 1939.15) S.L. Sharp, Poland – White Eagle on a Red Field, p. 143.


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At the end of 1938, Poland was issuing stamps which represented Danzig as ifit were a Polish city.16)

“By May 2 the Polish press had proceeded to the point where a demandwas made that ‘Danzig become Polish’. With Warsaw expressing a risingsentiment of Polish nationalism there was little prospect for a German-Polishagreement.” 17)

On 5 May 1939 the Polish Foreign Minister, Beck, declared in his speech tothe Diet, the Polish Parliament:

“The population of Danzig is to-day predominantly German, but itslivelihood and prosperity depend on the economic potentialities of Poland.

What conclusions have we drawn from this fact? We have stood and standfirmly on the ground of the rights and interests of our sea-borne trade and ourmaritime policy in Danzig.” 18)

To stand firmly on this ground meant to keep Danzig also in future in aneconomic dependence by having to rely on Poland for their livelihood and byfurther increasing this dependence.

On 11 June 1939, Warsaw again increased the number of its customs officialsin Danzig. The financial burden thus incurred was carried by the Danzig community.This measure was all the more provocative as the number of Polish customsinspectors in Danzig had risen to four times the number compared with the levelof 1929, while in the same period the trade in Danzig was cut down to one third ofits turnover value.19) In the same month the Polish-Danzig border was closed downto Germans. According to official Polish figures, “10.9 per cent of Poland’s overseasexport were carried by waterways in 1924”. 1937 the figure was 4 per cent, and in1938 it was 2.3 per cent.20) At the end of June 1939, the Polish minority leader inthe Danzig Volkstag, Budzynski, assured his few fellow Danzig Poles in a speechdelivered at the Polish “Festival of the Sea” that the union of Danzig with Polandwould be achieved by the army.10)

On 11 July 1939 Lord Halifax informed his Ambassador in Warsaw about atalk held with the Polish Ambassador, Count Raczynski, who had recently returnedto London:

16) Michel Katalog (stamp catalogue) 1938 and “German White Book” No. 2, doc. 198.17) C. Tansill, Back Door to War, p. 523.18) “Polish White Book”, doc. 77.19) “French Yellow Book”, doc. 175.20) B. de Colonna, Poland from the Inside, p. 153.


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“Colonel Beck is aware that the ‘Polish public opinion was too excited’,so that he felt obliged to state he ‘hoped that it might be possible to do somethingto tone it down’…

Beck admits that nothing had ‘materially changed the situation, and Danzigitself was still commanded by Poland’...

But Beck had announced ‘to increase their military preparations roundDanzig. Nevertheless, Colonel Beck felt the situation could not continueindefinitely on its present lines, as there was the danger of being faced with afait accompli’...

‘Although he had not yet come to any definite decision, Colonel Beckthought that perhaps the best way in which to call a halt would be to selectvery carefully one perfectly clear breach of the Constitution by Danzig, whichwould not be of so grave a nature as to cause an immediate explosion. If astand were made on this carefully chosen ground, the Danzigers might becompelled to beat a retreat. Colonel Beck had in view some joint tripartiteaction, not at Berlin but at Danzig. He thought this preferable, as it would notconfront the German Chancellor directly with any possible loss of face, and itwould be easier for him to effect a retreat through Danzig’...

‘Colonel Beck was, however, opposed to sending strong notes withoutcareful consideration, since they might only lead to unfortunate results’.

Colonel Beck was not, in fact, taking into consideration any talks ‘on theDanzig question… and thought that a tug of war would probably be necessaryto re-establish the position, as there had been too many breaches of the DanzigStatute.’” 21)

Although the British government had once again been made explicitly aware,by the middle of July 1939 at the latest,

a) that Poland was planning to become active in Danzig and, by contrivedmeans, diminish the German influence there, with the ultimate aim of eliminatingit altogether, and

b) that Hitler was in no hurry where the Danzig question was concerned, andthat he was prepared to negotiate through the channels of the League of Nations(“We are having recourse to the High Commissioner and not to Geneva itself”),22)

they sent shortly after a military mission to Moscow together with the French,with the aim of enlisting the Bolshevik Power for the fight against the GermanReich in Europe.

At the end of July, Poland’s reaction to the suggestion made by the DanzigGauleiter, Forster, to drop “all military measures now taken in Danzig” if there

21) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VI, doc. 293.22) “British Blue Book”- The Government Blue Book: Documents Concerning German-Polish

Relations and the Outbreak of Hostilities between Great Britain and Germany on September 31939, doc. 37.


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was a détente in the situation, was such that even Lord Halifax had the warning issuedto Warsaw that the Polish government was to avoid any “provocative assertions thatthe German Government are weakening”.23) But this too was of no avail.

On 1 August 1939, Warsaw terminated the export of duty-free herring andmargarine from Danzig to Poland. This decision affected ten per cent of the tradein Danzig. No detailed explanation is required to understand how much thisadditional measure would further impair the already severely restricted basicnecessities of life in Danzig. The French Consul in Danzig informed his ForeignMinister on 1 August:

“As the Senate has adopted a policy of silence with regard to the repeatedPolish protests in matters of customs inspection, so the Polish government hasnow taken economic retaliatory measures which could have graveconsequences…

These retaliatory measures came quite unexpectedly and produced asurprising reaction, with the reverberation to be found in the press on 31 July.The two daily newspapers protested loudly against this linking of an economicalquestion with the, in their opinion, purely political matter of the customsinspectors. They considered the whole matter a violation of the exchangeagreement which was in force until July 31, 1940, and repeatedly describe thePolish attitude as ‘direct action,’ to which they seem to display greatindignation....” 24)

All this was taking place at a time when it was well-known in Poland that“hitherto the Senate had never risked coming too far into the open…and that anythreat of a customs union with Germany should [not] be taken too seriously”. Inthe discussion of 2 August about these matters the Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs,Arciszewski, gave British Ambassador Kennard to understand “that the generalsituation might become critical towards the end of this month...”

“He admitted that the situation might develop within a few hours from thepolitical to the military phase…” 25)

Incidentally, the economic severance of Danzig from Poland was in totalcontradiction to the Polish empty rhetoric that Poland was unable to survive withoutDanzig. This step of ceasing trading with Danzig – already since 1919 Poland hadbeen continually cutting down her trade with Danzig – was, therefore, meant toserve militant goals.

23) ibid., doc. 38.24) “French Yellow Book”, doc. 175.25) “British Blue Book”, doc. 42.


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On 4 August Poland delivered to the “Free City” an ultimatum, with a limitationof seventeen hours, threatening immediate retaliatory actions and reprisals in theevent that an (alleged, but not issued) order from the Senate, regarding the field ofactivity of the Polish customs inspectors, was not withdrawn and attempts be madeto interfere in the duties of the, henceforth, armed Polish customs inspectors or toimpede them. The reason for this: a rumour.

“The French Ambassador in Warsaw is of the opinion that the Polish actionwas a tactical mistake. Also, the High Commissioner of the League of Nationsin Danzig, Professor Burckhardt, maintains that the Polish ultimatum of 4August has ruined all attempts at easing the tension. There is no doubt thatPoland, in this instance, has brought to a head an altercation which might wellhave been evaded without losing any influence and without any materialdisadvantage.” 26)

In the early hours of the morning of 5 August, the President of the DanzigSenate, Greiser, was informed that the import of all food products would be stopped,should Danzig defy the ultimatum of the previous day. Greiser, who consideredthat “the tenor of the ultimatum, the short deadline and the substance of the threatmake any answer impossible”, turned to the High Commissioner and declaredhimself willing to speak on the telephone with the Polish Commissioner Generalin Danzig, Chodacki, so that he could rectify the trigger-cause of the facts of thecase and thus prove the groundlessness of the accusation.27) Although Chodackiagreed to try to get his government to accept the telephone explanations as averbal note, he did, however, insist that the Danzig Senate confirm in writing the“compliance with the Polish demands”. In the meantime, Burckhardt had alsobeen notified by Chodacki that the wives and children of the Polish civil servantswere going to be evacuated. By delivering this threat to starve out Danzig, withno immediate cause, the Polish government was infringing upon the vital spheresof interest of Danzig and the Reich. Secret diplomatic correspondence reveals

“that military measures might have been taken [by the Polish government],had the Senate rejected the Polish note.” 28)

Poland was carrying the crisis to further extremes in that she did not withdrawthe ultimatum and the threat of embargo, but also in that she never revoked thearming of the Polish customs inspectors, although it had become evident that thepretext for this action was indefensible.

26) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 14 and “Polish White Book”, doc. 82.27) ADAP, vol. VI, doc. 774, note.28) “French Yellow Book”, doc. 182 – statement by Beck on 7 August 1939.


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On 6 August, Marshal Smigly-Rydz announced to 150,000 legionnairesgathered in Krakow

“that Poland was determined to meet ‘force with force’ and would opposeemphatically every attempt at transgressing upon her interests, directly orindirectly. Danzig, bound to Poland for many centuries, he added, was thelung of the Polish economic organization, and the Warsaw government haddefined their position on this issue clearly and unequivocally.” 29)

“‘Danzig is Poland’s lung! We have friends who understand us and whohave clearly expressed their solidarity with us’.

Resounding from the crowd: ‘We want Danzig!’ ” 30)

The conservative Polish newspaper Czas commented on this speech thefollowing day, to the effect

“that if the Danziger Nazis were trying to produce a fait accompli, thePolish cannons would roar.” 29)

“The guns which protect the honour of Poland are pointing at Danzig.Everybody must realize that these guns will be fired if the authorities of theFree City, contrary to the obvious interest of the Danzig population, are goingto confront Poland with a fait accompli.” 29)

The Polish Ambassador in Washington, Jerzy Potocki, thus drew the conclusionfrom his talks in Warsaw on this 7 August:

“Poland prefers Danzig to peace.” 31)

In this atmosphere, President Greiser submitted to the Polish ultimatum. Hedid this by delivering a verbal note not only on the telephone, he also put it inwriting, as requested by Poland. Although this statement was extremely well writtenand, furthermore, contained a clear protest against Poland’s action, it does notalter the fact that it was a “climb down”. The Polish Foreign Minister understoodit his way, more or less, as indeed did the foreign press.32) Beck

“sees his ‘policy of steadfastness’ confirmed by the outcome of the Danzigcrisis, as the French Ambassador in Warsaw reported to his government on 7

29) ibid., doc. 185 and “German White Book” No. 2, doc. 448.30) W. Ziegler, Wie kam es zum Kriege 1939? p. 65.31) Ilustrowany Kurjer, 7 August 1939 ; New York Times, 8 August 1939.32) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VI, doc. 585, 588.


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August 1939. The margin of any possible Polish concessions, however, hasbecome so narrow, as the same ambassador writes on the 8 August, that anyincautious act might well have the most serious consequences.” 33)

Greiser had notified the High Commissioner of the League of Nationsbeforehand – and this, too, is a sign of willingness for reconciliation – of theDanzig note and so had tried to obtain his advice and approval; a procedure notregarded as necessary by Poland in their dealings with Danzig.

On 8 August Ambassador Henderson reported to his Foreign Minister:

“It is these elements which are reinforced by press articles either in Englandor in Poland which tend to humiliate Germany particularly as it is strongly felthere that on the part of Poland such defiance would never be ventured unlessBritain were behind her…

It may be considered that humiliation is salutary for him [Hitler] but if thisdangerous policy is not that of His Majesty’s Government I earnestly submitthe utmost should be done at Warsaw as well as London to avoid driving himduring the next few weeks into a position where the dictator’s pride will notallow him to go slow even if he wishes it.” 34)

In a later report he mentions that the press comments in Warsaw and Londonon the speech made by Marshal Smigly-Rydz on 6 August have seriouslycompromised the settlement of the dispute in Danzig of 5 August, and he stressesemphatically:

“[The] attitude of the Poles… appears to me highly and unnecessarilydangerous.” 35)

Furthermore, the same day Henderson informed the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Sir A. Cadogan, about a conversation hehad with the resistance-movement member, State Secretary von Weizsäcker, whoallegedly had asked him:

“‘Is the Polish Ambassador alive or dead or is he no longer in Berlin?’ I asked the Belgian Ambassador to repeat [this] to Lipski and [he] had

discovered from Lipski that his instructions were to avoid all contactswhatsoever with the Germans.

I personally think that sort of attitude is too stupid for words, but I don’tknow what you feel in London about it. Britain is public enemy No. 1, but I

33) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 15.34) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VI, doc. 585.35) ibid., doc. 588.


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would certainly not suggest following such a course myself. I am going to have a talk with [Prince] Lubomirski, [about] the ‘Czas’

article.As a matter of fact Lubomirski is the one from the Polish Embassy who has

been scaring most of my colleagues by the extreme bellicosity of his remarks.Provided we do not register less firmness ourselves, we lose nothing and

may gain a great deal by giving Hitler the chance which he may really seek ofmaking a peace gesture. We lose on every count if we deprive him of thatchance, since he can prove to his people that he wanted it and that we wouldnot give it to him.

Not only the Germans but also the Italians believe that Poland would liketo force an issue this year, because she feels that British support may tend tobecome more lukewarm later.” 36)

On the 9 August the Reich government informed Foreign Minister Beck that arepetition of demands made in the form of an ultimatum to Danzig would lead togreater tension in the relationship between Germany and Poland and that anembargo would force Danzig, the “Free City”, to seek other possibilities for herimports and exports. Although Hitler had indicated here that he would stand byDanzig, he did not, however, threaten.

“They [the Polish government] replied within 24 hours, without consultingLondon or Paris, stating that Poland would consider any likely intervention ofthe Reich government in the relations existing between Poland and Danzig,which would be to the detriment of Polish rights and interests, ‘as an aggressiveact’. This reply showed − after the Danzig affairs had been fought overunceasingly for twenty years by Berlin and Warsaw − where it had got us.” 37)

This Polish note from the 10 August was additional confirmation that Polandintended to totally eliminate Germany’s influence on Danzig – also in the eventof a blockade – and to act with aggressive force there. Once again, Poland hadaggravated the situation to such a degree that even Lord Halifax, on 15 August,suggested, “… the Polish government [should]… from the point of view of worldopinion… examine the possibility of negotiation over Danzig… and to give him[Hitler] no excuse for acting.” 38) Ambassador Henderson had also realized thesignificance of this Polish note and could not “believe” that Hitler would haveremained as calm as he, indeed, did when he learnt about this note.39) However,

36) ibid., doc. 594.37) E. v. Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, pp. 244-245.38) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 20-21.39) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 37.


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the Poles had – as stated by Burckhardt –

“the intention to obtain a perilous success, and they never stopped talkingabout this success.” 40)

The Polish government was not alone in this: On 13 August Foreign MinisterBeck was able to show to the Ambassador of the USA in Warsaw, Biddle, a reportfrom the Polish Ambassador in London, Raczynski, which contained the explicitapproval of the British government for all recent Polish measures.41) That the Polishgovernment should feel encouraged by this goes without saying. The consequenceswere to follow.

On 18 August the Polish Commissioner General in Danzig, Chodacki, offeredto remove the economic embargo if the – meanwhile armed and further reinforced– customs inspectors and frontier guards were granted the right of unrestrictedoperation in the Danzig territory. The acceptance of this demand would have meantmilitary occupation and, with that, the Polonizing of Danzig. So now Danzig wasvirtually faced with a second ultimatum which allowed for only four alternatives:

a) Political customs strangulation and thus the destruction of the economy orrather their livelihood, for the future too (since 1 August Polish measures alongthose lines were in force!);

b) consenting to a military occupation by Poland;c) opening up the frontier to East Prussia to avoid starvation – thus accepting

a likely state of war as had been threatened by Poland for such measure; 42)

d) seeking help from the German Reich, and thus also accepting a likely stateof war as had been threatened by Poland for such measure.43)

The Danzig Senate accepted the economic strangulation and remained passive.The British Consul General, Shepherd, left the “Free City” on 24 August withouttaking leave of the Danzig Senate. He was not to return again.44) The reports ofthis expert were not utilized by Halifax for any peace resolution.

The negotiations on the question of customs inspectors in Danzig were brokenoff by Poland on the same day, the 24 August.44) Even if the documentation asreprinted in the ADAP, according to which the Danzig Senate was “employingdelaying” tactics in the negotiations with Poland, be genuine, it is surprising thatPoland did not complain about the manner of negotiating and demand that the

40) C.J. Burckhardt, op. cit., p. 347.41) Foreign Relations of the United States 1939, vol. I, p. 214.42) ADAP, vol. VI, doc. 771 – 4 August 1939 and doc. 773.43) “Polish White Book”, doc. 86.44) ADAP, vol. VII, doc. 254 and doc. 232.


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talks be put in concrete terms.45) With breaking off the talks, the refusal to evenattempt finding a mediator (e.g. Burckhardt or the British government), and theoutright rejection, right up to the outbreak of war, to hold any kind of negotiationwhatsoever with either the Danzig Senate or the German government and, finally,with the unequivocally formulated annexationist demands, Poland has explicitlydemonstrated her lack of interest in these discussions and revealed her trueintentions.

On the 26 August 1939, in the evening, Chodacki urgently recommended tothe League of Nations High Commissioner in Danzig, Carl J. Burckhardt, toevacuate his family quickly, “since there might be clashes any day now, and thetown could be bombed”.48)

“The situation is made worse by the fact that, to a large extent, the attitudeof the Danzig Senate is construed as a retreat.” 46)

This assessment of the situation emboldened Poland to further provocations,hoping

“that, in the event of war, unrest is going to break out in Germany and thatthe Polish troops would march successfully on Berlin.” 47)

Since the end of March 1939, the Polish government had refused all talks withthe Reich government under threat of war, had opposed every compromise and,even when crisis point was reached, was rejecting every gesture of goodwill forholding negotiations. Already on 27 May 1939, Foreign Minister Beck had givento Burckhardt the impression that “he was giving him instructions, instead ofdiscussing with him ways of working together”.48) “Within the momentary tension”,so stated Beck in this discussion with Burckhardt, “no talks between Berlin andWarsaw are possible”.48) Such “explanations” are no excuse for the lack of anycommitment to negotiations in those who have created the tension.

45) As no record proving the contrary can be found in the Polish documentation and, sinceVeesenmayer, who is named in these ADAP files as signatory, was acquitted in the Wilhelmstraßetrials 1946-1949 of charge no. 1 (“conspiring against peace”) on the grounds that he “had noknowledge of Hitler’s offensive plans”, or rather, could not have had, raise doubts as to theauthenticity of these documents printed in the ADAP (concerning Danzig during the last days ofpeace). “Das Urteil (verdict) im Wilhelmstraßenprozeß”, p. 43.

46) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 14.47) ibid., p. 372. – Ambassador Lipksi on 31 August 1939.48) C.J. Burckhardt, op. cit., pp. 351, 299.


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As mentioned before, Danzig was not the only goal for Poland, not the onlytarget for her provocations, but rather a means to an end.49) Poland, along with herEnglish and French friends, was determined to deprive the “Free City” of thefreedom to live according to her national and cultural ties, yes, they were even atpains to further limit Danzig’s economical basic necessities. This undertakingwas ultimately justified on the ground that the “freedom” of the whole world wasmenaced by Hitler.

“Danzig is German. The elections alone prove this. I have quoted theopinions of famous men. No one can deny that the vast majority of the Danzigersare Germans, or that they wish to join Germany. But if the Poles believe to thecontrary, why not hold a plebiscite under English control and abide by thedecision? Warsaw would, as I was told there, refuse such a solution, knowingthe result in advance. Poles told me that this was not a fair test since they hadclaims to the mouth of the Vistula. But I have dealt with those claims in anearlier chapter, and can only repeat that such arguments would be equivalentto giving the Dutch estuary of the Rhine to Germany, or the Portuguese areaaround the Tagus to Franco Spain.

There is no sense in fighting to keep one group of Germans in Danzig fromjoining another group of Germans in the Reich. It would be tantamount tosome other country going to war to prevent England and New Zealand fromsharing a single government if they wanted to. Danzig, as a city, was foundedby Germans. That Slavs may, many centuries ago, have opened a trading centreon the site of the present Free City is no reason for giving the area to Poland.The Serbs are also Slavs, and one might as well award it to them, for we haveno proof that the Poles are the descendants of such Slavs. Indeed, historiansdeclare they are not. But his point is not even of academic interest, and if webase claims on ancient days of occupation, we may as well begin by presentingthe East coast of England to Denmark, for it belonged to the Danes long afterthe Slavs who may have founded a trading centre in the Danzig region hadmigrated. Imagine Germany – or for that matter France, Russia, or Italy –wishing to guarantee Denmark the East coast of England on historic grounds!The historical side of the argument could not be denied – but its utter absurditywould make all Europe laugh.” 50)

49) S.L. Sharp, op. cit., p. 143.50) B. de Colonna, op. cit., pp. 149-150. B. de Colonna was for many years a special correspondent

for British and New Zealand newspapers and had exceptional opportunities for studyingconditions in Eastern Europe and especially in Poland. He was still visiting Poland in the summerof 1939. His book was published in London in the autumn of 1939.


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Hitler’s Position on PolandFundamental Principle from 1933 onwards

One of the very first moves of Hitler’s foreign policy was the endeavour tobring about an amicable relationship with Germany’s eastern neighbour, Poland.This, despite the fact that the Polish Marshal Pilsudski had been planning, inalliance with France, attacks on the German Reich, three times already in the yearof Hitler’s coming to power, i.e. 1933, when, furthermore, up to that time almosthalf of the Volksdeutschen had been driven out of Poland, when further Polishterritorial demands continued to be made in a thoroughly aggressive manner and,when not one of the Weimar governments had hitherto managed even a halfwaytolerable rapprochement with Poland. The peace and friendship Declaration of 26January 1934 was so formulated as to renounce every resort to force for a ten-yearperiod and to settle all contentious questions in a neighbourly fashion. The frontierquestion was ignored. Although it was out of the question for Hitler to concludethe “Eastern Locarno treaty” with Poland, that is to formally recognize the easternfrontier of the Reich as delineated at Versailles (not one of the Weimar governmentswas able to do this, either!), so Hitler did everything within his power to smooththe path for a peaceable future coexistence of the German and Polish nations. Alldocuments attest the fact that Hitler had signed the Agreement in all sincerity andhonesty, and his foreign policy was in conformity with this accord in the yearsfollowing 1934 right up to midsummer in 1939; or, that is to say, that from 28April 1939 onwards he tried hard to re-align the fundamental principles of theAgreement with the changed conditions (the British guarantee to Poland andPoland’s partial mobilization).

“Possibly the most distressing evidence of the strong determination ofGerman politics to do justice to the spirit of the treaty of 1934 was the silentpassing over, for the time being, of all these chicaneries and all of these blatantlyobvious injustices inflicted upon the German element within the Polish State.

If Poland would have done perhaps only fifty per cent for the Germanminority of that which was being done in Germany for the Polish minority,


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then the feeling of disappointment in the German public, which was growingmore bitter by the day, would not have sprung up.” 1)

German proposals for a revision of the questions outstanding since 1918 havealways started out from the principle of recognizing the Polish interests. Hitlertook this approach to such lengths in that he was to be the first German politiciansince the Versailles border ruling who acknowledged in principle the need forPoland to have free access to the Baltic Sea, who made cessions, and who refrainedfrom threatening military action as a means of exerting pressure so as to forcenegotiations or during negotiations. Without a doubt, the fundamental principleHitler was following for many years was this: The border and minority questionsare insignificant when compared with the necessity for concord between thesetwo European peoples.

Evidence for 1935:

“Hitler was clearly demonstrating by his exceptionally accommodatingformulae and by his suggestions for a necessary German-Polish ‘friendship’ inthe case of ‘danger’ that he set great store by Poland’s support in the face ofthe French-Soviet alliance of 2 May.” 2)

Evidence for 1936:

“Ribbentrop and Hitler saw Polish-German relations almost exclusivelywithin the perspective of the, then, rapid pace of Soviet foreign policy and,therefore, were putting much emphasis on the common ground in Polish andGerman interests.” 3)

Evidence for 1936: Records of the Polish Under-Secretary of State at theMinistry for Foreign Affairs, Count Szembek, of his conversation with Hitler on12 August1936:

“When he assumed power in 1933, Polish-Danzig relations were in theworst possible state. He then ordered his people that they should at all costscome to an understanding with Poland. The decisions of the Versailles Treatymight be the cause of dissatisfaction and regret, but none the less the factswhich had arisen must be taken into account. The Danzig question wasnegligible in comparison with the magnitude of those problems which pointedto the necessity of harmonizing German and Polish policy.

1) F. Heiß, Deutschland und der Korridor, p. 296.2) H. Roos, Polen und Europa, p. 232.3) ibid., p. 244.


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When he ordered his people in Danzig not to quarrel any more with Poland,he was violently attacked not only by German Nationalists, but also by Socialistsand Communists, and that in Danzig as well as in the Reich itself. He wasaccused of betraying Germanism. He, however, ignored these attacks, and didnot retreat one single step from his chosen policy of the necessity for anunderstanding with Poland.” 4)

Evidence for 1937:Reports of talks of Marshall Smigly-Rydz and Field Marshall Göring:

“M. Göring announced that he had been instructed by Chancellor Hitler toemphasize that he (Hitler) was more than ever determined to continue thepolicy of rapprochement with Poland… On the German side, there was nodesire whatever to deprive Poland of any part of her territory… For that matter,it was quite obvious that a strong Poland, with access to the sea, a Poland withwhom Germany could agree her policy, was incomparably more necessaryand useful to the Reich than a weak and mutilated Poland. For Germany realizedthat an isolated Poland would be much easier to subdue, and then the wholeRussian avalanche would strike directly against the German frontier.” 5)

Evidence for 1938: Adolf Hitler on 26 September 1938 at the Sportpalast inBerlin:

“We realize that here are two peoples which must live together, and neitherof which can do away with the other. A people of 33 millions will always strivefor an outlet to the sea. A way to understanding, then, had to be found; it hasbeen found; and it will be continually extended further. But the main fact isthat the two Governments, and all reasonable and clear-sighted persons amongthe two peoples and in the two countries, possess the firm will and determinationto improve their relations.” 6)

Evidence for 1939: Reports of the talks of Hitler and Colonel Beck atBerchtesgaden on 5 January 1939:

“In answer to this the Chancellor stated that to solve this problem it wouldbe necessary to try to find something quite new, some new form, for which heused the term “Körperschaft”, which on the one hand would safeguard theinterests of the German population, and on the other the Polish interests. Inaddition, the Chancellor declared that the Minister could be quite at ease,there would be no faits accomplis in Danzig and nothing would be done torender difficult the situation of the Polish government.” 7)

4-7) “Polish White Book”, doc. 24, 29, 42, 48.


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8-9) Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945, vol. V, doc. 119, p. 153 seq.10) ibid., doc. 120, p. 159.

1) R. Breyer, Das Deutsche Reich und Polen 1932-1937, p.334, and Documents on GermanForeign Policy 1918-1945, vol. V, doc. 86.

2) D. Hoggan, The Forced War, p. 174, 61-62.

“… every Polish division… was a corresponding saving of a Germandivision… a strong Poland was an absolute necessity (for Germany)...” 8)

“All of us, victors and vanquished, would be buried under the same ruins;the only one to benefit would be Moscow.” 9)

Colonel Beck acknowledged in the subsequent conversation with the ForeignMinister of the Reich, von Ribbentrop, on 9 January 1939 in Munich, that he hadnoted

“with sincere satisfaction the Führer’s clear and firm policy of friendlyunderstanding with Poland.” 10)

Not one of these quotations is chosen arbitrarily. Each one is a typical exam-ple of Berlin’s position vis-à-vis Warsaw. On the other hand, no equivalent basicintention on the part of Poland has been in evidence during all these years.

The Proposal to Poland Made 24 October 1938Why Choose this Moment in Time?

The project of an extra-territorial motor-road running across West Prussia intoEast Prussia goes back as far as the year 1933:

“Hitler’s idea, as expressed in May 1935, of a technical transport solutionsolving the Corridor problem by means of a rail connection and an autobahn,is one of the many suggestions intended to diffuse the German-Polish mattersof dispute.” 1)

In May 1935 the Polish Foreign Minister had started his evasive and delayingtactics, although he, as well as the Polish government, had begun to realize, by1937 at the latest, the dire necessity of reaching a fundamental settlement on theDanzig question.2)

As for the Versailles requirements, it would be patently obvious, even today,to any expert on that period and, indeed, as was at the time acknowledged byevery reasonable and clear-sighted person, that these must not be allowed to strain


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neighbourly relations between the peoples of Germany and Poland for all times,that is to say a new formula would have to be found at some time.

That the Polish government had come to be aware of and admit this necessityis shown by the following passage from the Polish memorandum addressed to theGerman government on 5 May 1939:

“2. The Polish Government had foreseen for several years that the difficultiesencountered by the League of Nations in carrying out its functions at Danzigwould create a confused situation which it was in Poland’s and Germany’sinterest to unravel. For several years the Polish Government had given theGerman Government to understand that frank conversations should be held onthis subject. The German Government, however, avoided these and confinedthemselves to stating that Polish-German relations should not be exposed todifficulties by questions relating to Danzig. Moreover, the German Governmentmore than once gave assurances to the Polish Government regarding the FreeCity of Danzig…

Finally, the Polish Government indicate that their attitude in the questionof facilitating communications across Pomorze depends on the attitude of theReich regarding the Free City of Danzig.” 3)

As any politically aware person would agree, such revision must not be workedsolely at Germany’s cost once again. Towards the end of October 1938 Hitlerdeemed it appropriate to re-introduce these points for discussion, cautiously andever willing to compromise. Creating a basis for negotiations belongs to theincumbencies of politics; the choice of timing requires political dexterity. DidHitler get his timing right? Indeed, he had ample cause to regard the second halfof October 1938 as a favourable opportunity for such talks with Poland:

On the 22 July 1938, three months before the German proposal, the PolishForeign Minister Beck had stated to the High Commissioner of the League ofNations, Carl J. Burckhardt:

“In the absence of any pressure and threats it is still possible to discusswith the Reich some of the left-over problems of the Versailles Treaty. Withthe hybrid founding of the Free City in 1918 a permanent discord wasintentionally created between Poland and Germany.” 4)

Or, in another passage:

3) “Polish White Book”, doc. 78.4) C.J. Burckhardt, Meine Danziger Mission 1937-1939, p. 164.


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“The statute of the Free City of Danzig was without a doubt the most bizarreand complicated creation of the Versailles Treaty. It would be difficult topresume that it had been created other than for the sole purpose of becomingthe source of continual conflicts between Germany and Poland or, at the veryleast, of being a barter object which could be used, at opportune occasions, tosacrifice Polish interests in favour of Germany’s.” 5)

Five weeks before the German proposal, the Polish Ambassador, Lipski, wentone step further by suggesting to Hitler on the 20 September 1938 a settlement ofthe Danzig question. Therefore, the German initiative following on from that,especially since “it was presented in a very amicable form”,6) should not havecome as too much of a surprise.

At the beginning of October Beck had entered into a German credit agreementthat granted Poland a loan of 120 million Zloty. The harmonious accord existingat the time between Germany and Poland was recognized by all European Powers.Beck had refuted, in an interview given to the Hearst press on the 10 October, therumours circulating that Germany had been demanding the re-integration of Danzig,and he emphasized that “peace in Europe would be possible only when the nationsreached a lasting understanding with Germany.” 7)

The Polish stance during the Sudeten crisis (acquisition of Teschen) and thesubsequent Czech policy of Warsaw was seen by England and France in anantagonistic light. On the other hand, relations between the Reich and Britain andFrance seemed good, even though from London there had filtered through somesharp, semi-official notes of discord ever since the Munich conference, althoughBerlin could not have known their extent nor, indeed, their significance, while onthe Polish side, the government there feared that their action against Czecho-Slovakia might result in the intervention by the Soviet Union and was, therefore,asking for at least a benevolent attitude of neutrality from Germany in this specificcase.8) The Soviet note of the 23 September 1938 that was threatening to terminatethe Non-Aggression Pact between Poland and Soviet Russia and, in addition tothat, the concentration of several Soviet army units at the Polish border, wereconcrete reasons for these concerns.9) Likewise, the Polish Ambassador inWashington, Potocki, confirmed later that relations between Poland and the USSR

5) ibid., p. 24.6) H. Lebre in Les Origines Secrètes de la Guerre 1939-45, p. 53 (German ed., pp. 44-45).7) Archiv des deutschen Auswärtigen Amtes, series 52 a, 34476, quoted by D. Hoggan, op. cit., p. 144.8) ADAP, vol. V, doc. 54, and vol. IV, doc. 83.9) Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945, vol. V, doc. 106 and 108.


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had “taken a decided turn for the worse after the Czech crisis” in early October1938.10)

The immediate impetus, however, started out from the Polish Ambassador,Lipski, and the German State Secretary, von Weizsäcker, __ thus, significantly,neither from Ribbentrop nor from Hitler. Lipski presented on the 22 October 1938,as per instruction from his government, to the Under-Secretary of State, Woermann,the request that the Reich government lend their support to the transference ofCarpatho-Ukraine (a region belonging to the national territory of Czecho-Slovakia)to Hungary. Weizsäcker, who transmitted this proposal to Ribbentrop and Hitler,recommended that one should “seriously” examine the question whether to initiate“a serious discussion with Poland and of demanding compensation from her” __

here he had in mind “Danzig and Memel”.8)

England’s unprovoked turning away from the only recently signed German-British declaration of peace and friendship at Munich11) largely contributed topersuading Hitler to clarify anew Germany’s relations with Poland. What was notwithin his sphere of knowledge, however, was the utter determination, as displayedby mainly Roosevelt, to change the course with one aim only __ totally ignoringany legal position and in complete disregard of Hitler’s peaceful willingness toresolve matters through negotiation __ to frustrate any and every step in favour ofGermany. Indeed, President F.D. Roosevelt did possess those means of exertingpressure, of which Bullitt, his Special Ambassador, would often boast about duringhis diplomatic talks before the war. Potocki, the Polish Ambassador to Washington,could report after a conversation with Bullitt on 22 November 1938 that Rooseveltwas of the opinion

“...that, at its close (war), power alone could put an end to Germany’s madaspirations to expansion. In answer to my question as to what he imagined thiscoming war would be like, he answered that the United States, France andBritain must rearm on a gigantic scale if they were to be able to confrontGermany.

The decisive step cannot be taken ... until the right moment comes.” 12)

Roosevelt was pursuing, by means of the “economic and propaganda waragainst Germany”, which had already led in the United States within six weeksafter the Munich conference __ quite independently of and without any knowledge

10) “German White Book” No. 3, doc. 7.11) On 10 October 1938 London announced plans for 16 army divisions, on 13 October plans for a

volunteer national service register. Roosevelt informed the press on 14 October of an extensive navaland air force programme and on 15 October of the supply of 400 military aircraft to Britain.

12) “German White Book”, No.3, doc. 4.


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of the German-Polish talks! __ to a “psychosis ... similar to that which prevailedjust before America declared war to Germany in 1917” 12), the goal of includingalso Poland and the USSR in an anti-German front.13)

As mentioned before, Hitler could not foresee this machination from Roosevelt.Bearing this in mind, no historian can, therefore, rightfully criticize Hitler, neitherfor his endeavour to initiate the talks with Poland, nor for the contents and theresult of these talks.

The Unfolding of the Negotiations

Such was Hitler’s circumspection that when he had Ribbentrop in October1938 continue with those talks which had been suggested by Lipski and had beenfurther expanded by von Weizsäcker, the Polish Foreign Minister remainedconvinced for years afterwards that the real initiative for the talks had come fromRibbentrop and not from Hitler.1) The German basic principle of the negotiationswas conveyed by word of mouth; in this way the most prudent of diplomatic formswas employed that would permit a withdrawal without any loss of prestige. Inthese proposals the Reich government did not make any demands, did not set anydeadline, did not exert any pressure, did not impair Poland’s sovereignty, did notoffend her honour and did not aim to humiliate her. The German propositionenvisaged a strengthening of the German-Polish neighbourly relations and a willingEuropean disposition to fight Bolshevism.

Its contents:The Free State of Danzig to return to the German Reich. An extra-territorial

motor-road belonging to Germany to be built across West Prussia and, likewise,an extra-territorial railway with several tracks. In return for this, Hitler wasprepared:

a) to guarantee Poland’s economic rights in Danzig including a free port;b) to give final and permanent recognition to the existing borders between

Poland and Germany;c) to prolong the German-Polish Peace Declaration to 25 years;d) to guarantee the independence of Slovakia, conjointly with Poland and

Hungary, and by this step the Reich would renounce her supremacy in this region;e) to render Poland military assistance in the event of a Soviet offensive.For many months neither the outline nor the contents of the German proposal

13) H. Roos, Polen und Europa, p. 395, quotes J. Szembek, Journal 1933-1939, pp. 381, 386, 389,390, 404.

1) J. Beck, Dernier Rapport, p. 182 seq.


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were regarded as a stumbling block by Foreign Minister Beck, even though hewas “not willing to give up one crumb of the [Versailles] spoils of war”.2)

Furthermore, Beck had been keeping for months the contents of the talks with theReich government to himself and, indeed, had raised in the western countriesalready “fears” that “Poland might draw closer to Germany”.3) It is significant thateven Beck himself acknowledged the need for a revision of the Danzig question.On 31 October 1938, one week after having taken cognizance of the Germanproposals, Beck gave instructions to his Ambassador in Berlin, Lipski. Paragraph4 b read as follows:

“In the opinion of the Polish government the subject of any futureunderstanding concluded with the object of permanently maintaining goodneighbourly relations would have to be the following:

a) ...b) Such a settlement of the problem of the Danzig Free City as would

prevent, in future, the continually recurring difficulties of a technical andpsychological nature which arise from friction in this sphere. The question ofthe Free City is urgent because in the state of affairs hitherto prevailing, withthe League of Nations reserving very far-reaching prerogatives to itself, butnot able to fulfil its task in a manner beneficial to the Free City and to Polishinterests, the need arises for the Polish and Reich Governments to approachthe problem in a spirit of frankness.” 4)

Soon after that the Polish Foreign Minister made the official announcementthat “Poland was not conducting any negotiations about Danzig and the Corridor”.5)

As for internal policy, however, he informed the League of Nations HighCommissioner Burckhardt on 21 November 1938 that

“Poland would give up representing Danzig in foreign affairs. After all,Poland’s interest in Danzig was mainly an economic one.” 6)

The purpose underlying this statement seemed clear: to inform Hitler of Beck’strue intention, that he was about to take up the proposals of Weizsäcker, linkingthe matter of Carpatho-Ukraine with that of Danzig, and gradually to makeconcessions. Thus Hitler was further strengthened in his belief that Beck honestlywished to hold talks on these questions, particularly since he had given Hitler tounderstand on 5 January 1939 at the Obersalzberg,

2) C. Tansill, Back Door to War, p. 519.3) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 207.4) “Polish White Book”, doc. 45.5) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, vol. I, pp. 324, 405.6) Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945, vol. V, doc. 102.


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“that he could thoroughly appreciate the German point of view, and he wasprepared to consider the problem at more leisure.” 5)

In reality the Polish Foreign Minister was not at all contemplating a diplomaticreadjustment. Towards the end of January 1939, the German Foreign Minister,von Ribbentrop, travelled to Warsaw, and he made a point of once more stressingthat it was Hitler’s desire to have strong neighbourly relations with Poland. Thiscould be accomplished, as had already been indicated previously to the Polishgovernment, by forming a German-Polish defensive alliance within the frameworkof the anti-Comintern pact and by guaranteeing the common frontiers now inexistence, that is to say, Germany would agree to a final and permanent renunciationof Posen-West Prussia and East Upper Silesia, as well as by the guarantee of anon-aggression pact for 25 years.

“How restrained and justified is this [German] request [reunion of Danzigwith the Reich and an extra-territorial connection with East Prussia] can bestbe demonstrated by a comparison with the demands made by the Germanopposition of Goerdeler’s some time later during the war, at a time when thefortunes of war were no longer favouring Germany: Goerdeler was demandingthe return of the frontiers of the Reich according to 1914.” 7)

It is an undeniable fact that the Foreign Minister of the Reich made everyendeavour to establish amiable relations. The French Foreign Minister, Bonnet,commented on Ribbentrop’s visit to Warsaw:

“Nothing about this speech [by Ribbentrop] was alarming. In Paris somepeople were even disturbed by the sincerity of the verbal exchange: was thatnot an indication that Poland was preparing to strengthen ties with Germany,at our [French] expense?” 8)

On 31 January 1939 Beck confirmed to the French Ambassador in Warsaw,Noël,

“that he had found himself in complete agreement with the German Ministeron the necessity and the possibility of settling, in the ‘spirit of neighbourliness,’which is the basis of the pact of 1934, present and future difficulties betweenboth countries.” 9)

7) K. Zentner, Illustrierte Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges, p. 60, and R. Breyer, CarI Goerdelerund die deutsche Ostgrenze, pp. 198-208.

8) G. Bonnet, Fin d’une Europe. De Munich à la Guerre, p. 123. (German ed., p. 175).9) “French Yellow Book”, doc. 42.


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Hitler had conciliatory words for Poland in his Reichstag speech of 30 January1939, despite Ribbentrop’s recent lack of success there. The German press wasstill not allowed to print any offensive reports about Poland. Hitler had orderedthe Foreign Office and the Danzig Senate, likewise, to remain calm even in theface of provocations.

“Cooperation with Poland was still the German aim; Danzig merely thesecurity for it. Hitler himself thought this. On 25 March he issued a directive:

‘The Führer does not wish to solve the Danzig question by force. He doesnot wish to drive Poland into the arms of Britain by this.

A possible military occupation of Danzig could be contemplated only if L.(Lipski) gave an indication that the Polish Government could not justifyvoluntary cession of Danzig to their own people and that a fait accompli wouldmake a solution easier for them.’

On 26 March Lipski returned to Berlin. He brought with him a firm refusalto yield over Danzig, though not a refusal to negotiate. Until this momenteverything had gone on in secret, with no public hint of German-Polishestrangement. Now it blazed into the open. Beck, to show his resolve, calledup Polish reservists. Hitler, to ease things along as he supposed, allowed theGerman press to write, for the first time, about the German minority inPoland.”10)

Warsaw was prepared only to shunt out of the way the League of Nations HighCommissioner in Danzig and, in this event, to facilitate the through traffic to EastPrussia. According to Beck, this issue would have “complication involved in sucha system”.11) “... any other solution”, so Lipski had been briefed already on 31October 1938, “must inevitably lead to a conflict”.11) This response implied: Eitheraccepting unconditionally the Polish proposal or unreservedly condoning thegrowing Polish influence in Danzig with the statutes remaining unchanged, whichwere to have been “guaranteed” by the incompetent League of Nations – or thethird option: war! Warsaw was not about to offer any improvements in Danzig’scondition; any alterations at Germany’s expense, however, would find approval.As from now on, the Reich government had to submit to the threat that “in futureGermany was to be held strictly accountable for every action taken by the DanzigSenate”.12)

“Only Danzig prevented cooperation between Germany and Poland. Forthis reason, Hitler wanted to get it out of the way. For precisely the same

10) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 210.11) “Polish White Book”, doc. 45.12) “German White Book” No. 2, doc. 211.


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reason, Beck kept it in the way. It did not cross his mind that this might causea fatal breach.” 13)

Beck’s dramatic and objectively indefensible breaking off from the Germantalks assumed even more startling proportions when the British unilateral guaranteeof the carte blanche given to Poland was expanded into a bilateral agreement on31 March and at the beginning of April 1939, on the occasion of Beck’s visit toLondon. It did not stop here, though: On 5 May 1939 before the Sejm, he declaredthe German concessions to be worthless, and they were not meant to be takenseriously. In this speech Beck was concealing the fact that at no time had he evershown any real interest in any of the German concessions.

“A self-respecting nation does not make unilateral concessions. Where,then, is the reciprocity? It appears somewhat vague in the German proposals.”14)

This, then, the Polish Foreign Minister felt emboldened to pronounce in thisdiscourse of the 5 May, in spite of the fact that only one week before Hitler hadannounced to all the world in his address before the Reichstag on 28 April 1939the exact details of his proposals including the unambiguously worded conces-sions! By this time, Beck would preclude even the merest hint of a Germanconcession as an “offense against Poland’s honour”, whose safeguard was moreimportant than that of peace.

From the secret files that were made available only after the war it was con-firmed that it was neither the content nor the form of the German proposals, as putforward by Ribbentrop, that were the cause for the brusque posturing as displayedby the Polish Foreign Minister for the benefit of the Polish public and the Polishmilitary, but it was rather prompted by Beck’s desire to engage in “Great PowerPolitics”, to challenge Hitler and to be the one to dictate the conditions for thefuture of the European community of states.15) Beck knew that the Britishgovernment was in full accord with his aspiration, as he affirmed in the samediscourse:

“It was possible to establish rapidly the principles of Polish-Britishcollaboration, first of all because we made it clear to each other that theintentions of both Governments coincide as regards fundamental Europeanproblems.” 14)

13) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 196.14) “Polish White Book”, doc. 77.15) Foreign Relations of the United States 1939, vol. I, p. 113.


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As to what exactly were meant to be the “intentions of both governments” canbe discovered from the diplomatic documentation.15)

The British Ambassador in Berlin, Nevile Henderson, wrote on 26 April 1939in a private letter to his Foreign Minister:

“If Danzig had gone German six months ago no one would have worriedand an extra-territorial corridor over the Corridor is a perfectly just arrange-ment. If Scotland were separated from England by an Irish corridor, we wouldwant at least what Hitler now demands. Taken by themselves it would be wickedto drift into a world war for the sake of these points.

I cannot bring myself to believe that the policy of a show-down now ratherthan later has any moral or practical justification.” 16)

The same Henderson in letters of 4 and 6 May 1939:

“According to my Belgian colleague, practically all the diplomatic repre-sentatives here regard the German offer in itself as a surprisingly favourableone. The Dutch Minister, the United States Chargé d’Affaires and my SouthAfrican colleague have themselves spoken to me in that sense. ...

I must confess that when Göring used to mention to me the solution of acorridor over the Corridor, I never even discussed it because I thought it toogood to be true.…” 17)

The same Henderson in a letter of 26 July 1939:

“It had, in fact, always seemed to me inevitable that in some form or anotherMemel and Danzig – on the basis of self-determination and being practicallywholly German – must in time be freed from the Versailles shackles and revertto the Reich.” 18)

A German historian, who is anything but a friend of Hitler:

“It is, indeed, difficult to imagine how any German government could havedemanded any less than that which Hitler was claiming in his proposals.”19)

An American historian presents a summary:

16) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. V, Appendix 1, p. 798, M. Freund, op.cit., vol. II, p. 200.

17) ibid., vol. V, doc. 364 (4 May) and doc. 403 (6 May), M. Freund, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 242, 256.18) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VI, doc. 460.19) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. II, p. 231.


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“Ribbentrop and Hitler suggested a settlement in October 1938 which wasfar less favourable to Germany than Point 13 of the Wilson programme hadbeen. This proposed settlement would not enable Germany to regain the positionshe would have retained had the Allied Powers not have violated the 1918armistice contract ...

The applicable doctrines of international law indicated that the extrater-ritorial arrangement would constitute merely a servitude rather than an actualtransfer of sovereignty. The Germans in this arrangement would receive aspecial privilege within an area under Polish sovereignty ...

The October 1938 Hitler offer was the most modest proposal which Polandhad received from Germany since 1918…

[…] it was the impatience of the Polish leaders, rather than of Hitler, whichled to the rupture of negotiations in March 1939… Hitler was also willing toretreat somewhat from the original proposals and to abandon the Germansuggestion for a railway to accompany the superhighway to East Prussia.

It might have made a difference had Beck been equally frank at this timeand spoken his mind to Hitler about Danzig. Hitler would have known wherehe stood before he was confronted with a Polish mobilization and a Britishencirclement policy.” 20)

From Spring to August 1939

Hitler had found the brusque rejection from Poland regrettable. Foreign Ministerof the Reich von Ribbentrop had this to say at the Nuremberg IMT-trials:

“I just said that Hitler received this harsh and serious message of the PolishAmbassador [of 26 March 1939] very calmly. He said, however, that I shouldtell the Polish Ambassador that of course no solution could be found on thisbasis. There should be no talk of war.” 1)

20) D. Hoggan, The Forced War, pp. 256-257, 265. Point 13 of the Wilson Programme reads as follows: “An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited

by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea,and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteedby international covenant.”

Wilson announced his “programme for world peace“ on 8 January 1918. He understood “Poland’saccess to the sea” to mean that Poland use the Vistula and have a free port in Danzig. Nopolitician of the former Western Allies and associate Powers would have imagined, at that time,a demarcation of the frontier in the shape of the later forcibly imposed “Corridor” by Poland.

1) IMT, vol. X, p. 299.


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There were no fanatical statements in Germany that “German honour had beenoffended”; none of the arguments, therefore, as were brought to bear by the PolishForeign Minister in his crucial speech of the 5 May 1939 before the Sejm. Thewarlike fanfare accompanying the Polish refusal was bound to aggravate thesituation even further. In spite of this, any German press reports dealing withPoland continued to be restricted to statements as issued by the German NewsAgency (Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro = DNB) only and so, in the main, were keptalong defensive lines and “played down”2) until August.

Hitler had made a good offer to Poland: advantages in the economical field, aguarantee of support against foreign aggression, friendship, yes, even the finaland permanent recognition of the Versailles borders as well as Poland’s generalinterests. The Polish Foreign Minister, Beck, affirmed to the British Prime Ministerin the London talks of 4-6 April 1939:

“The German Government had never contested Polish rights in Danzig,and had recently confirmed them. ...

Mr. Beck replied that nothing that had happened had passed beyond thestage of conversations. No written demands had been presented to the PolishGovernment.” 3)

Yet, in spite of this, Poland favoured the British guarantee, and this was movingthe situation ever closer to war in Europe and, ultimately, to a world war, althoughPoland was not receiving in exchange any economic benefits, nor military support,neither the guaranteeing of her frontiers and no safeguarding of her independence.With this manoeuvre did the British politicians, together with their Polishcounterparts, embark on changing the destiny of Europe and, in doing so, theywere calculating on a violent reaction from Hitler.4) The expected and hoped for“outburst of rage” failed to materialize. Hitler confined himself to four steps:

1. For the first time the German press was permitted to report on factual truthsabout Poland, even on the meanwhile stepped-up anti-German outrages on theminority Germans, although for many long months a rigorous censorship from theGerman News Agency (DNB) allowed only a small and limited scale reporting.

2. The Danzig Senate was up to August 1939 inclusive repeatedly advised topractice restraint and to avoid altogether any course of action that might beconstrued as provocation.

2) H. Sündermann, Das Dritte Reich, pp. 61-62.3) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. V, doc. 2.4) Foreign Relations of the United States 1939, vol. I, p. 118.


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3. The Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht was directed to prepare a plan ofoperations which would, after 1 September 1939, facilitate taking swift actionagainst Poland at a moment’s notice (“Operation White”, directive from 3 April1939). This plan was designed for a particular situation only: In the event thatPoland’s isolation could be effected, i.e. thereby limiting a war to Poland. It was asecret military directive, intended for a specific eventuality – not in any way adecision for war. Therefore, the order would not have aggravated the situation.Even less so, if one bears in mind that no spectacular mobilization was planned –in contrast to the Polish plan.

Leaving aside the fact that in Europe there was nothing unusual, actually, for acountry to keep in readiness plans of operation against neighbouring countries,even though their diplomatic relations would still be on a favourable footing, so itwas that Hitler’s directive was merely the response to the change in the situationthat was forced upon him. If the sole reason for the posturing of England andPoland was that they were trying to only safeguard themselves against furtherexpansion of the Reich after the incorporation of Bohemia and Moravia, thenthese countries ought to have impeded any warlike eventualities, ought to haveinstigated negotiations on minor disputes, and they ought to have orientated theirpolicies towards the principles of international laws and not towards the “laws” ofthe “balance of power politics”. Protective alliances formed along those criteriamight indeed have produced worthwhile results, whereas, on the other hand, theguarantee given to Poland created a fateful shift in the situation, which playedright into the hands of all the war-lusting forces. Although for many years Polandhad held in readiness her plan of operations against Germany, it was now thatPoland was making a move to put it into action without delay, the war aim being:the acquisition of Danzig, East Prussia and the “Oder territories”. In contrast,Hitler’s plan of operation was not aiming at any political war objective. Quite theopposite: one week later, on 11 April 1939, he stated in a further directive that“Operation White” was merely designed as a precaution in the event that Polandadopt a threatening attitude towards Germany. The German foreign policycontinued to be based on the principle of avoiding trouble.5) Field Marshal Keitelwrote about this in the Nuremberg IMT-prison:

“Hitler was repeating over and over that on no account did he want a warwith Poland, and that he was never going to let matters develop to the pointwhere there was a danger of an intervention by France, in accordance with herEastern treaty obligations.” 6)

5) ADAP, vol. VI, doc. 185.6) W. Görlitz, Keitel – Verbrecher oder Offizier? p. 207.


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This measure – the plan “Operation White” – represented the bare minimumthat any government would have undertaken, having found themselves in the sameor a similar situation:

“This directive is not issued subsequent to Poland’s rejection of the Germanproposals and requests. It is put out only now, after Poland has allied herselfwith England. Hitler is beginning to realize that England is now decided uponan out-and-out confrontation.” 7)

4. The speech delivered by Hitler before the German Reichstag on 28 April1939 was, against all expectations from abroad, moderate. Since the British andFrench guarantees to Poland, in conjunction with the military policies of thesecountries, contravened the terms of the treaties with Germany, so in this Reichstagspeech Hitler pronounced the German-Polish Declaration of non-aggression andfriendship of 1934 and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 as torn up bythe respective parties on the other side. Both Poland and Britain have affirmed –contrary to their contractual treaties with Germany – their reciprocal assurancesof mutual assistance in the event that the use of force against the Reich becamenecessary. In addition to that, the Polish partial mobilization and an intensificationof an already rigorous minority policy was implemented or, rather, condoned.This handling of the situation was in contradiction of the Joint Declarations ofpeace and friendship which had been signed as a result of the Munich conferenceonly a few months previously. These were, as is well known, to have debarredhenceforth any threat of force and any use of force.

Great Britain had brought about a change of fortune in Europe without anyjustifiable reason, because the Reich government had not threatened Poland, letalone England being threatened by Hitler. It must, therefore, appear all the moreastonishing that Hitler should continue in his efforts to win Britain over, eventhough the British leadership had determined, since the end of 1938, not only toadopt an uncompromising approach in all dealings with Germany, but plainly wasalso busily engaged in increasing the tension (the blank cheque to Poland andturning a blind eye to all Polish measures, alliance talks with the USSR) and,further, in the inflammatory rabble-rousing (the gross over-stating and exploitationof the Tilea-lie, the charge by Chamberlain that Hitler wanted to “conquer theworld” etc.).

Hitler was endeavouring in his speech of 28 April 1939 to restore Germany’sprestige, which had been deliberately tarnished. In no way could his explanatoryaccount have aggravated the situation, as it was merely recounting facts. No German

7) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, vol. II, p. 110.


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naval projects had been stepped up, and there was no slackening in the efforts atimproving relations with Poland.

“In his speech in the Reichstag on 28 April (No. 214) and in the GermanGovernment Memorandum of the same day (No. 213), the Führer wrote “finis”to six years of honest, patient endeavour to secure the friendship of Poland.However, even in this serious moment he made one more offer of peace anddeclared himself prepared, in the name of Germany, to discuss a new treaty.Poland did not make use of this opportunity, but chose to reply with a haughtyspeech from M. Beck on May 5, with intensified anti-German agitation and anunending stream of speeches and newspapers articles demanding for Polandmore territory inhabited by Germans and even Reich territory. It was admittedin competent Polish circles that M. Beck had become the prisoner not only ofPolish chauvinism but also of the British endeavours (No. 216).” 8)

During the following months Hitler was keeping a low profile, avoiding anymeasures which could have worsened the situation. The signing of the “Pact ofSteel” with Italy that was taking place during this period on 22 May 1939 did notcreate a provocative alliance designed for offensive purposes. Hitler had evenmade numerous small diplomatic disclaimers during this time.9) This would includethe assurances, conveyed through diplomatic channels, that the Reich governmentdid not wish to go to war over Danzig and was willing to pay a price to improvethe general tone.

“Although the Führer [in July 1939] still insisted that ‘there is no modifi-cation of German claims regarding Danzig and the Corridor’, he also addedthe sensational statement that ‘nothing will be done on the German side toprovoke a conflict on the question; the question can wait, if necessary, untilnext year or even longer’.” 9)

The principal colleague of the Danzig Gauleiter, Forster, the Parliamentary(Volkstag) press chief and editor-in-chief of the “Vorposten”, Zarske, as well as theGauleiter of East Prussia, Koch, had both insistently repeated, independently of eachother, to Mr. Burckhardt, the League of Nations High Commissioner in Danzig,

“that ‘Danzig is really not worth a war’. At the same time, Herr Zarske isanxious to a degree that is quite remarkable, to brush aside the memory of theCzechoslovak precedent. He has admitted that ‘this expedition was a mistake,’

8) “German White Book” No. 2, pp. CXXIX-CXXX.9) D.J. Dallin, Soviet Russia’s Foreign Policy, p. 36.


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and even added that ‘in Berlin they do not know how to get out of it and wouldbe very glad to find a solution’…” 10)

The French Ambassador in Warsaw, Léon Noël, enclosed with the same reportsent to Paris an addition, which was the description of the personal impressions inDanzig from his First Secretary, who would relate,

“…that the effervescence which had been observed in the Free City wasconsiderably exaggerated by interested propaganda and never presented thecharacter of organized preparations for violent action.…

The Danzig authorities declare that the Free City wants to be in such astate ‘as not to allow itself to be invaded without resistance’. They also saythat Danzig must defend itself against possible aggression by the Poles. Thisargument, for that matter, is not pure propaganda. It corresponds to a realanxiety on the part of the population. Recently, while in Western Europe thepossibility of an approaching “putsch” in Danzig was kept in view, theDanzigers, for their part, seem to have sincerely feared some such step on thepart of Poland.” 10)

The Reich press chief’s deputy, Helmut Sündermann, justifiably points at theGerman press directives issued at the beginning of summer in 1939, which havebeen withdrawn from historical research since 1945 to a large extent:

“It began with a comment made to the Danzig delegation that wascongratulating him [Hitler] on his fiftieth birthday on 20 April 1939: thereintegration of the Free City into the Reich was to be considered as postponedfor the time being. It continued with frequent language rulings for the Germanpress... For some months the press reports had been concentrating in growingmeasure mainly on the ‘encirclement’, and only secondarily was the subjectPoland. Indeed, the papers were instructed to only comment on the politicaltension with regards to Poland in line with such news as was released by the‘German News Agency’ (DNB) and, in such cases, to refrain from placing it aslead feature. However, since almost the entire foreign press during those weekswas writing about nothing else but ‘Danzig’ and the ‘Corridor’, it was not easyfor the German editorships to adhere to these strict guidelines...

This is a directive for the press of 3 July 1939:‘The ‘German News Agency’ (DNB) will be issuing a review of these last

few days and manifesting the extent of the agitation as practised abroad, evenat the highest governmental levels: ‘The Führer is coming to Danzig’, ‘Putschin Danzig’, etc., etc. When these predictions fail to come true, the agitators

10) “French Yellow Book”, doc. 160: Noë1 on 10 July 1939 to Bonnet.


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hastily assert that the Führer had retreated when faced with the threats. This isthe old, well-known tactic; here we find the reason for the more than outlandishfancies of Polish chauvinism.’

The above outlined journalistic precautionary measures were only givenup at the beginning of August; in fact, it was in connection with the so-calledCustoms Inspectors dispute...” 11)

On 11 July 1939 “a person of high standing in National Socialist circles” madea declaration to a member of the French embassy in Berlin, which the FrenchAmbassador acknowledged as authorized by the Reich government. According tothis, Hitler was ready to officially drop the Foreign Minister of the Reich, vonRibbentrop, as the initiator of the German-Polish talks, and to improve relationswith Poland, Britain and France. In this declaration it is stated:

“Herr von Ribbentrop no longer enjoys the Führer’s absolute confidence.The Führer has given expression to a certain number of grievances against hisMinister. In particular, he reproaches Herr von Ribbentrop with having wilfullyconcealed from him several items of information proving the high war-potentialof Great Britain. Moreover, he accuses his Minister of having committed him,in connection with Danzig, to a difficult undertaking which runs the risk ofcompromising Germany’s prestige if a satisfactory solution is not soon found.

It must be borne in mind that the raising of the Danzig question is Herr vonRibbentrop’s personal doing. However, when he undertook the campaign forrestoring this territory to the Reich, he did not realize that he would meet withfirm resistance on the part of the Western Powers.

It seems that the Poles might still make proposals which our Governmentwould agree to consider...

Have you not been struck recently by the somewhat changed tone of our Presstowards Poland? You no longer find accounts of Polish-German incidents.Nevertheless, according to our information, the people of Poland continue, on themost trivial grounds, to molest our nationals living in the country. Our Ministerwants to hold out a hand to the Warsaw Government for one last time.

The Government, and especially those in control at the Wilhelmstrasse,view the future with some anxiety. They realize that the feeling of hatred forGermany grows daily. Only yesterday, this hatred, this indignation, werepeculiar to the rulers of certain States. To-day, it looks as if the masses hadbeen won over to these feelings. This development is especially noticeable inthe case of Great Britain.” 12)

The French Ambassador, Coulondre, who was serving in Moscow for the period

11) H. Sündermann, op. cit., pp. 61-62.12) “French Yellow Book”, doc. 161.


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November 1936 to October 1938 “in order to reach a French-Soviet agreementagainst Hitler”, was most surprised about his subsequent Berlin legation13) andapparently could not quite perceive the purpose of the move. He lost no time inalerting his Foreign Minister, Bonnet, to this “trap already set”, with the suggestion“to do everything within his power to open the eyes of the public”, since Germanyobviously wanted “the restoration of the frontiers of 1914” and was trying “toshake the attitude of the Western Powers”. He had to admit, nevertheless, that theremarks of the “person of high standing in National Socialist circles”

“…does as a whole tally closely enough with the impression which emergesfrom a study of the German newspapers, and also with information which Ihave gathered elsewhere.

Several papers have declared that Danzig is not a casus belli, and theDeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung even seems to invite negotiation, when it writesthat a reasonable solution is entirely within the bounds of possibility. A similarnote is to be heard in Government circles, where it is given to be understoodthat there would be no refusal to negotiate if Poland were to put forwardproposals.” 12)

This opportunity, too, was lost, as once again the French government failedto intercede and thereby made another endeavour of the Reich governmentcollapse.

The German efforts to reach an understanding with Poland remained unchanged.Official representatives of the Reich and of Danzig were informing foreigndiplomats during their numerous occasions of contact of their “mutualapprehension” and, while “there was no urgency about the problem of Danzig”,there were foreign forces driving the Danzig matter to a head in such a way that itwas getting difficult for the German side to have “ways of retreat... be kept clear.”14)

Hitler, who had not touched on the Danzig question since the 28 April 1939, andwho wanted those diplomats concerned with the question to be informed, even yeton 25 July, that he was prepared to carry on waiting as long as might be necessaryin order to bring about a solution of the Danzig question by peaceful means,” 14)

on 7 August sent for the Danzig Gauleiter, Forster, requesting an explanation as towhy his efforts aimed at easing the political tension had failed.15) The recall of theGerman Ambassador from Warsaw was intended mainly as a warning to Poland,

13) L.B. Namier, In the Nazi Era, p. 168.14) “French Yellow Book”, doc. 171, 172.15) C.J. Burckhardt, Meine Danziger Mission 1937-1939, p. 331.


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but it was also an announcement that Polish efforts for conciliation had becomenecessary.16) Unfortunately, Poland chose to ignore this hint as well.

The fact is established that

“Hitler contributed little to the course of diplomacy between April andAugust 1939. As on previous occasions, he was content to prepare and to wait,confident that the obstacles would somehow disintegrate before him.” 17)

But it was precisely during these months that decisive developments were gotunder way! One may recall the British prompting which the Polish Foreign Ministerrefused in London at the beginning of April 1939,18) the spreading of unfoundedrumours of German troop movements against Poland,19) the over-eagerness shownby Great Britain in the presenting of unsolicited guarantees to other countries, theintensified activity of the US President, Roosevelt, designed to frustrate the policyof appeasement in Europe, the attempts to draw the Soviet Union into the coalitionagainst Germany.

“Quite otherwise was the behaviour in Berlin. The tripartite negotiations, andin particular the agreement that British and French missions should be sent toMoscow, aroused ever-growing alarm in Hitlerite government circles. Theyfeverishly discussed and attempted to put into effect various measures which theythought might frustrate, or at any rate postpone, the signature of a triple pact.” 20)

Also, with regard to Poland, the negotiations proposal prepared by the GermanReich and presented to Poland on 24 October 1938 was no longer put up fordiscussion during the summer months of 1939. Something quite different hadbecome the decisive factor: the de-Germanization policy which was carried out,because of the British pledge of assistance, with ever increasing unbridled restraintin the Corridor provinces, in East Upper Silesia and in Teschen. In addition to thatthere were the various ultimata-dependent actions from Poland directed at Danzig,which were carried to such an extreme that the only choice left to the “Free City”was between starvation and military occupation and, in the end, there was therefusal to settle any differences around the negotiating table. One must realize,when assessing these events, that the Polish government was fully aware that Danzigmerely served as a pretext for the British government;21) indeed, that the British

16) ADAP, vol. VII, doc. 2.17) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 219.18) ibid., p. 212.19) ibid., p. 210.20) I.M. Maisky, Who helped Hitler? p. 189.21) J. Szembek, Journal 1933-1939, p. 481.


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assurance of “protecting” Poland in the case of war was nothing but “puredeception”.22) There was no need, therefore, for Chamberlain’s self revelationbefore the House of Commons on 1 September.

Naturally, there had to be a limit to Hitler’s accommodating stance towardsPoland. The watershed was reached at that point, when any further yielding of theReich would have confirmed the Poles in their belief that Germany could beintimidated and provoked with impunity and make Germany loose her prestige.Anyhow, only a statesman with the authority of the former Chancellor of the Reichcould proffer a legally binding relinquishment of Posen-West Prussia and EastUpper Silesia. Which “peace-loving” state or which “exemplary states leading thecivilized peoples” have offered even just one such renunciation? – Not a singleone! However, this does not stop some historians from raising an attention-seekingfinger aloft and to denounce as “aggression” the upholding of the claims to historicalsettlement space, even label the conditional renouncing of this said settlementarea as “aggression” – so as to divert attention away from the world-wide, forciblyattained conquests of other statesmen.

“If he [Hitler] had wanted to provoke Poland to the point of war, then hewould have demanded Danzig and the entire Corridor. And even that wouldnot have entitled Poland morally to a war, as the entire arranging of the Corridorwas a mixture of vindictiveness and political folly from the Allies and a grossinjustice to Germany…

Instead of now [after Poland’s refusal] increasing his demands or showinghimself as impatient or abusive, Hitler proposed further concessions to thePoles and retained an unparalleled patience…

In the interest of a peaceful solution, Hitler was even prepared to abandonthe large German minority in Poland, who were being treated with increasingviolence by the Poles. But the Poles were neither able to appreciate themoderation of the German demands nor the considerate and friendly mannerin which they were presented.” 23)

Also the words conveyed by the British Ambassador in Berlin, Henderson, on26 July 1939 to his Foreign Minister, made no impression in London:

“But it is not impossible that Hitler may consider it more prudent, havingachieved so much, not to start a war for what remains. He may well regard it aspreferable to obtain somewhat less than his full desiderata by negotiation ratherthan risk the whole of his winnings at one blow.” 24)

22) P.H. Nicoll, Britain’s Blunder (German edition), p. 136.23) ibid., pp. 147-148; cf. Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 455.24) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VI, doc. 460.


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When on the 1 August 1939 the Polish government prevented the duty-freeexport of essential commodities from Danzig, directed on the 4 August an ultimatumat Danzig and followed that on the 10 August with a note to the Berlin address, inwhich any further intervention by the government of the Reich on behalf ofDanzig’s vital interests is defined as an “aggressive act” (which now, thanks to theBritish blank cheque, was bound to be followed by a European war!), then thePolish government was undoubtedly guilty of aggressive acts. Threatening withwar, Poland was hereby demanding from the Reich government the surrender ofall those rights in Danzig which had been perceived by every German governmentsince 1919.

Nevertheless, Hitler was not going to be provoked. Whether it was acoincidence or Hitler’s reaction to the Polish ultimatum to Danzig on the 4August – at any rate, he invited the High Commissioner of the League of Nationsin Danzig, Carl J. Burckhardt, on the 10 August for talks on the 11 August tothe Obersalzberg, where he had him swiftly conveyed by private plane, withthe express entreaty for mediation. The sole existent report about these talksshould only be evaluated by exercising great caution, since it was neither writtendown by Burckhardt nor any other participant, but rather by two representativesof Halifax and of Bonnet.25) The fact remains: Hitler had on the 11 August –without any doubt after learning of the new Polish note from the day before –informed Burckhardt that he – Hitler – at present was not intending to makeany Danzig proposals, but that he was willing to wait, providing that Polandrefrained from provocative action and from offending the German prestigeany further. Local negotiations might be continued; the German willingnessfor discussions was already known to the Poles. Therefore, would the Polestake the initiative for negotiations as this had been taken out of his handsbecause of the Polish threat of war on 26 March 1939.

Hitler:

“My wish is for an Anglo-German understanding and to conclude a once-and-for-all final pact with England.” 26)

Burckhardt was hindered from achieving this task – not by the German side! –and he did not render any objective and convincing information as to the reasonsfor the failure of his mediation. Nevertheless, he was alluding to powers abroad inthe West that had made the aim perfectly clear as “not to make easy” a German

25) C.J. Burckhardt, op. cit., pp. 346, 348.26) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, pp. 58-60.


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drawing back, and they had given him the advice “to refrain from his damagingappeasement manoeuvres in Danzig”.27)

After taking note of this endeavour for mediation by Hitler, Lord Halifaxinformed his Ambassador in Warsaw, Kennard, on the 15 August 1939:

“It was his impression that Hitler was still undecided, was trying to avoid awar and to keep a low profile without loss of face, if possible.” 28)

The British historian A.J.P. Taylor arrived at the following conclusion:

“He [Hitler] was intending to succeed without war, or at any rate only witha war so nominal as hardly to be distinguished from diplomacy. He was notprojecting a major war... He was not interested in preparing for a long waragainst the Great Powers.

A big war with the Western Powers was, undoubtedly not part of his plan.British policy had, without design made Danzig the decisive question for

1939...Danzig was the most justified of German grievances: a city of exclusively

German population which manifestly wished to return to the Reich and whichHitler himself restrained only with difficulty…

The destruction of Poland had been no part of his original project. On thecontrary, he had wished to solve the question of Danzig so that Germany andPoland could remain on good terms...” 29)

Adolf Hitler was explaining his policies to the French Prime Minister, Daladier,in a letter of 27 August 1939, as follows:

“Year by year I have tried earnestly to achieve the revision of at least themost impossible and most unbearable of all the conditions of this Dictatethrough negotiation. This proved impossible. Many enlightened men of allnations believed and were convinced that revision was bound to come. Whateverobjection may be raised against my methods, whatever fault may be foundwith them, it cannot be overlooked or denied that I succeeded without anymore bloodshed in finding solutions which were in many cases satisfactorynot only for Germany. By the manner in which these solutions were accom-plished, statesmen of other nations were relieved of their obligation, whichthey often found impossible to fulfill, of having to accept responsibility forthis revision before their own people... No Frenchman with a sense of honourand certainly not you, M. Daladier, would, in a similar position, have acteddifferently from the way I did...

27) C.J. Burckhardt, op.cit., pp. 349, 104.28) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 20.29) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., pp. 217, 250, 215, 216.


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It is a lie when the world alleges that we always used pressure in attemp-ting to carry out any revision. During the fifteen years preceding NationalSocialism’s rise to power there was ample opportunity to revise the VersaillesTreaty by peaceful means. But the revisions were not made. I myself then tookthe initiative in every single case, not only once, but many times, to bringforward proposals for the revision of absolutely intolerable conditions...

I am firmly convinced that if Poland at that time had been advised to takea sensible course instead of being incited by a wild campaign of the Britishpress against Germany, accompanied by rumours of German mobilization, thenEurope would today be able to enjoy a state of profound peace for the next 25years. Actually, it was the lie about German aggression that excited publicopinion in Poland; the Polish Government were handicapped in makingnecessary and clear decisions and, above all, their judgment on the extent ofPoland’s possibilities was clouded by the subsequent promise of a guarantee.The Polish Government rejected the proposals. Firmly convinced that Britainand France would now fight for Poland, Polish public opinion began to raisedemands which might best be described as sheer lunacy were they not soextraordinarily dangerous. At that time unbearable terrorism set in; physicaland economic oppression of more than one and a half million of Germansliving in the territories severed from the Reich. Even in Danzig the outragescommitted by the Polish authorities fully created the impression that the citywas apparently hopelessly delivered up to the arbitrary action of a power thatis foreign to the national character of the city and its population. Yet I wouldask you to appreciate also this; namely, that no nation with a sense of honourcan ever give up almost two million people and see them maltreated on itsown frontiers.” 30)

Any objective observer would have to agree that it had become necessary forthe Reich to give protection to the Volksdeutschen in Poland and Danzig becauseof the unrestrained Polish provocations. Not only the German government, butany government, would have needed to check such provocations or else surrenderinto foreign hands, along with her prestige, the protection and the rights of theminorities, for whose very safeguarding of their livelihood she was responsible.

The well-known British military historian Liddell-Hart wrote on 3 September1949:

“After the end of the war, the most important German archives fell into ourhands, and so we had a very precise picture of the intense level of the dread ofwar felt among the German leadership.” 31)

30) “German White Book” No. 2, doc. 461 and doc. 471, and Adolf Hitler, Der GroßdeutscheFreiheitskampf, pp. 13-17.

31) B.H. Liddel-Hart in Picture Post, 3 September 1949.


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However, these documents have been kept largely hidden from the publicworldwide. The Reich government did not have them published because they didnot want to provide the enemy with “evidence of weakness”, whereas the victors,who took these documents as booty, were not anxious to have them widelydisseminated, for obvious reasons.

Nevertheless, there are “other side”-politicians of renown who are provingthat the concepts and the esteem, the purpose of raison d’état are equally valideverywhere, here as well as there, be it in this state or in that regime.

The 1923 British Yearbook of International Law, London:

“A government cannot remain indifferent to the lot of the citizens of analien state, who have the same national culture, who speak the same language,who profess the same faith as the majority of their own nationals.” 32)

The Polish Foreign Minister on the 5 May 1939 at the Sejm:

“We in Poland do not recognize the conception of ‘peace at any price’.There is only one thing in the life of men, nations and States which is withoutprice, and that is honour.” 33)

Prime Minister Lloyd George:

“If England had to submit to be treated thus that in instances where hervital interests are at stake she would have her voice pushed aside as irrelevantin the council of nations, then I must say that ‘peace at any cost’ would meana humiliation that no great country can endure.” 34)

American President Eisenhower stated in a televised speech on 16 March 1959:

“Peace cannot be bought by making a sacrifice of two million freeBerliners.” 35)

32) K. Rabl in Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Völker, p. 122.33) “Polish White Book”, doc. 77.34) Dokumente der Deutschen Politik and Geschichte, vol. II, p. 237.35) Cited in Das Neue Reich, No. 13, 28 March 1959.


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The reason for the British air-armament programme was givenby the Lord President of the Council in the British House ofCommons, Stanley Baldwin, with these sensationalwords:‘Britain’s frontier is on the Rhine!’Introduction of the auxiliary service in Poland.Escalation of the British air-armament.Military service is to be extended in Switzerland.Military service of two year duration in force in Czecho-Slovakia.Announcement that the strength of the Red Army had alreadyreached one million men under arms.

The announcement of the Franco-Russian Entente resultedin quite considerable armament measures on France’s part,in particular the restructuring of the French Air Force.

30-07-1934:

24-09-1934:28-11-1934:06-12-1934:01-01-1935:

30-01-1935:

January-March1935:

When in the British White Paper of 1 March 1935 the British armamentmeasures are justified on the grounds of Germany’s rearming, The Times declared

The Armament Level in the Year 1939Germany

In the assessment of the military potential of the European powers, manyhistorians nowadays “overlook”, when debating the German rearmament, thestrategic plans of the Polish, the French but also of the Soviet Armed Forces.However, leaving aside these plans, the actually existing war potential of theindividual European powers will attest to whether or not there could have beenthe intention present in a nation for an “intensive and criminal rearming aiming ata world conspiracy”. What are the results of the six years of rearming in the ThirdReich from 1933-1939?

Professor Michael Freund, the much quoted historian after 1945, wrote infactual plain language in the year 1944:

“Germany’s struggle to get back on her feet and the German armamenttook place against the backdrop, and as a consequence, of a feverishly pur-sued world-wide arms race and of a revolution in military policies on aglobal scale.


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that the argument given for the British armament measures ‘could have beenpresented more objectively’.” 1)

Not only did Germany have to take account of the armament measures of theother powers, but she also had to take note of the threatening posturing – especiallyPoland’s – aiming at military invasion.

“Furthermore, the Field Marshal [Hindenburg] retained discretionarypowers over the German army and foreign politics when Hitler came to power,and this was respected by Hitler until the death of Hindenburg.

For the moment, all obvious violations of Versailles – for example to exceedthe 100,000 men-limit – would be avoided; Hitler kept strictly to the armamentnegotiations. However, the constant threat of a preventive war eventuallybecame a very effective argument for the German armament demands.” 2)

In the opinion of the Chief of the German General Staff, General Adam, therewas done “during the whole of the year 1933 practically nothing to increase thearmy”.3) This was at the time when, for example, it was pointed out by the Chief ofthe French General Staff, Gamelin, that, compared with Germany, France had anarmament’s lead of 20 billion francs.4) Furthermore, this came at a moment whenFrance was rejecting the German proposals for disarmament with the kept hiddenopinion:

“You are wasting your time! The convention which you favour will neverbe concluded for we shall never be a party to it! Hitler won’t last much longer,his fate is sealed! Any convention with him would consolidate his power. Shouldwar break out, not a week would elapse before he would be deposed andreplaced by the Crown Prince.” 4)

The highest official in the [British] Foreign Office, Lord Vansittart, was thenalso entertaining similar ideas, that is, to keep Germany down through economicpressure.

“We can ill afford to let Hitlerite Germany prosper. The Trade UnionCongress is also of this opinion, though for different motives – see their recentlyannounced boycott of German goods.” 5)

1) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten 1934-1935, pp. XVIII, 73, 93, 408, 436,and I. Colvin, Vansittart in Office, p.125, and F. Berber, Deutschland – England 1933-1939, p.189.

2) H. Roos, Polen und Europa, pp. 88, 87.3) ibid., p.103: Affidavit of General Adam at the Krupp trial, in Verteidigungsdokumentenbuch 2b,

no. 104.4) A. François-Poncet, The Fateful Years: Memoirs of a French Ambassador in Berlin 1931-1938,

pp. 127, 125. Statement of the French minister André Tardieu to Ambassador François-Poncet inthe spring of 1934.


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In his view one should aim for the destruction of ‘Hitlerism’ and make everyeffort to keep Germany in such an enfeebled and miserable condition that noteven the Communists would want to become involved there.5) How persistentlythese and similar views were influencing the development of an informed opinionin the British military and the British government is demonstrated by the exampleof a report from March 1934 by the Defence Requirements Committee assignedto the government: This report takes it naturally for granted that the potential foewas Germany.5) Of course, this report, too, goes back to prior events and into atime when Hitler had not yet assumed power and Germany was as yet without anair force and without National Socialism. Already in November 1932 Britishstatesmen were discussing plans which envisaged air deterrence that would enableBritain to have ‘some military influence in Europe’ without having to maintain alarge army on the Continent.

“ ‘The only defence is in offence,’ said Baldwin then, considering the roleof bomber aircraft, ‘which means that you have to kill more women and child-ren more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves.’ ” 5)

So what efforts did this German opponent make?In the fiscal years 1933-34 and 1934-35 no increase in the armament

expenditure was recorded. An expenditure representing 4% of the national incomehas to be regarded as positively moderate compared to the neighbouring countries(Great Britain 3%, France – 1932 – 8.1%, Soviet Russia 9%).6) The armamentexpenditure was only increased in the financial year 1935-36, in view of the changestaking place in foreign affairs politics (the collapse of the disarmament negotiations,the French-Soviet Mutual Assistance Pact). For two years foreign politicians andthe foreign media had been accusing Hitler of sabre-rattling to get into a “criminalwar of aggression” and thereby destabilizing peace by spreading terror andinstability around the world. In the end, he saw no other alternative but to strengthenthe German Armed Forces as a protection against the tendencies displayed by theother powers of forming various blocs against the Reich. Spreading lies about theGerman rearmament became a necessary requirement in order to find a justificationfor the refusal to disarm, for continuing the arms build-up, for the forming ofmilitary alliances, for the building of fortifications, for the General Staff meetingsand, also, to continue lending some semblance of right and necessity to the policiesof Versailles. The foreign military attachés as well as the foreign secret services in

5) I. Colvin, op. cit., pp. 28-29, 35, 121.6) Die deutsche Industrie im Kriege 1939-1945, published by the Deutschen Institut für

Wirtschaftsforschung (German Institute for Economic Research), p. 16.


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Germany had precise information of the quite moderate level of the Germanarmament. There is an abundance of documents confirming that the foreigngovernments (Poland, Great Britain, France and USA) felt emboldened into takingtough actions against Germany when they realized the inadequately developedstate of the German military defence.7) This reality, however, did not stop thosegovernments from inflaming their population by feeding them false data and fakearguments through the media.

The British historian A.J.P. Taylor stated:

“The French had fired the starting-pistol for the arms race.” 8)

“Germany, for instance, was little more prepared for a great war between1933 and 1936 than she had been before Hitler came to power. The differencewas that he had strong nerves and his predecessors had not.” 9)

“Many of the early alarms about German rearmament were false alarms...Even in 1939 the German army was not equipped for a prolonged war; and in1940 the German land forces were inferior to the French in everything exceptleadership.” 10)

“The Nazi secret was not armaments production; it was freedom from thethen orthodox principles of economics.” 11)

“Under Hitler’s direction, Germany was equipped to win the war of nerves– the only war he understood and liked; she was not equipped to conquerEurope....

In considering German armament we escape from the mystic regions ofHitler’s psychology and find an answer in the realm of fact. The answer isclear. The state of German armament in 1939 gives the decisive proof thatHitler was not contemplating general war, and probably not intending war atall.” 12)

The German level of armament was

1937 = 9% 1938 = 16% of the level in 1944 13)

1939 = 18 %}

7) C. Tansill, Back Door to War, p. 554. 8) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 77. 9) ibid., p. 119.10) ibid., p. 75.11) ibid., p. 104.12) ibid., p. 218.13) D. Hoggan, The Forced War (German edition), pp. 391, 829.


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According to another calculation,1933 = 2%1934 = 2%1935 = 4%1936 = 6%1937 = 9%1938 = 20%1939 = 25%1940 = 44%

General Jodl stated at the IMT in Nuremberg on 4 June 1946:

“In 1935, when we set up 36 divisions, France, Poland, and Czechoslovakiapossessed 90 divisions for times of peace, and 190 divisions for war. We hadhardly any heavy artillery, and tank construction was in its earliest stages…

Real rearmament was only begun after the war had already started. Weentered into this world war with some 75 divisions. Sixty per cent of our totalable-bodied population had not been trained. The peacetime army amountedto perhaps 400,000 men, as against 800,000 men in 1914. Our supplies ofammunition and bombs were ridiculously low.

We had ammunition for 10 to 15 days of combat...And if we did not collapse already in the year 1939 that was due only to the

fact that during the Polish campaign, the approximately 110 French and Britishdivisions in the West were held completely inactive against the 23 Germandivisions.”15)

Moreover, these divisions were “ equipped with very little artillery and almostno means at their disposal of any anti-tank defence”; furthermore, they wereimmobile.16) Even if the territorial and the reserve divisions of the third and forth“wave” are also added to the count, the American military historian T. Taylorarrives at only 106 German divisions in the year 1939, while the French armyalone, including trained reserves and colonial troops, comprised an equal numberof divisions at the outbreak of war, but due to the level of training was strongerthan the German army.17) Moreover, to this have to be added the British, the Belgian(23 divisions = 550,000 men) and the Dutch divisions which, combined with theFrench divisions on the German front, came to 156, or rather, 142 divisions.18)

14) Die deutsche Industrie im Kriege 1939-1945, p. 23.15) IMT, vol. XV, pp. 385-386. These declarations are confirmed by all the experts of the former

enemy side. The size of a division, being roughly 15,000 men, was in general the same in theindividual countries.

16) D.M. Projektor, “The War in Europe 1939-1941” (Russian), p. 20.17) T. Taylor, Sword and Swastika, pp. 256, 306.18) W.A. Sekistow, “The Strange War in Western Europe and in the Mediterranean 1939-1943”

(Russian), p. 85.

of the level in 194314)}


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The German leadership had to consider that these troops, in case of conflict withPoland, would be deployed for an advance on the Reich. Besides the approximately2.6 million German soldiers (including reserves) 20), grouped into “102 divisions”19),there were in the autumn of 1939 a further 500,000 men in para-militaryorganizations.21) Nonetheless, only 52 divisions “could be considered fully fit foraction”.19) In the year 1914 there were almost one million more men under arms inGermany than there were in 1939.21)

“In contrast to 1914, when the German Reich had at her disposal 25 age-groups of trained reservists, in 1939 she could only call to arms 5 age-groups.”19)

“In 1935, France, unaided by her previous allies, could have invaded andreoccupied Germany almost without serious fighting. In 1936 there could stillbe no doubt of her overwhelmingly superior strength. We now know, from theGerman revelations, that this continued in 1938…

In the year after Munich, [1939], which we are now examining, the Germanarmy, though still weaker in trained reserves than the French, approached itsfull efficiency.

The German army was not capable of defeating the French in 1938 or 1939.... when the German Army could scarcely put half a dozen trained divisions

on the Western Front, the French with nearly sixty or seventy divisions couldmost certainly have rolled forward across the Rhine or into the Ruhr.” 22)

In this connection, one ought to compare the size of population of the twocountries: Germany had 80 million people, France 42 million people.

Burton Klein, an American scientist (Harvard University), supplements in histhorough study on the German economical war preparations the previous datawith the following words:

“Up to the time of the German reoccupation of the Rhineland in the springof 1936, rearmament was largely a myth. ...

The armed forces did not even have a central economic agency which couldreview the various demands for materials and formulate some sort of areasonable requirements picture.

It was a cardinal policy of Hitler that war strategy was not a concern ofeconomic planners… Supplies of important items like copper, iron ore, gasoline,

19) H. Michaelis, Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte, vol. IV, p. 14.20) F. Halder, Kriegestagebuch, vol. I, p. 48: 1.5 million of these men were planned for action

against Poland. See also B. Müller-Hildebrand, Das Heer 1933-1945, vol. II, p. 15: mentions109 divisions.

21) B. Klein, Germany’s Economic Preparations for War, pp. 73, 3.22) W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. I, book I, “The Gathering Storm”, pp. 264, 271.


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and rubber were, in August 1939, in sufficient supply for only 3 to 6 months ofcontemplated war needs.

...in 1939 Germany’s steel economy was dependent on foreign sources for65 per cent of the ore supplies and practically all of the ferroalloys.

In the expansion of imports in 1937 and 1938, however, food importsincreased faster than raw material imports, with the result that the compositionof imports was almost the same in 1938 as it had been in 1929...

It can be said that German manpower was fully mobilized in 1939 only inthe sense that there was no unemployment... The distribution of the labourforce over this fourteen year period was surprisingly stable. Pronounced shiftsoccurred in only two of the occupational groups – agriculture and publicemployment... There were large sectors of the economy in which manpowerwas unaffected by war mobilization...

In 1939 the civilian economy still possessed large reserves of labour...There was no pronounced concentration of investment in those activitiesassociated with economic preparations for war.

In the pre-war period, the German economy produced both ‘butter’ and‘guns’ – much more of the former and much less of the latter than has beencommonly assumed. By 1937, civilian consumption, investment in consumergoods industries, and government non-war expenditures equalled or exceed-ed previous peak levels. There is no question, therefore, of a rearmamentprogram so large that it prevented a substantial recovery of civilian production.

The volume of munitions production and the number of divisions whichGermany mobilized were, by comparison with published appraisal, small.Investment in those industries comprising the war potential was not much largerthan the volume reached in the prosperous years of the previous decade andwas small in relation to total investment.” 23)

“The government’s disinclination to ask for civilian sacrifices was demon-strated in a number of instances. One of these was its refusal to consider highertaxes as an alternative to deficit spending; another was its unwillingness in1937 to cut food imports in favour of increased raw material imports; stillanother was its failure to transfer workers out of unessential occupations;another example [was] inefficient economic administration...

When Schacht [President of the Reichsbank] attempted to cut expendituresfor municipal improvements, he was invariably opposed by some prominentparty members. When, on numerous occasions, he tried to reduce the budgetof the German Labour Front, the issue was taken to Hitler, who invariablydecided in favour of the latter. Because it was contradictory to its ideology, theparty also opposed measures to force a larger number of women into the labourforce.

Public nonwar expenditures in 1937 and 1938 were much above anyprevious peak...

23) B. Klein, op. cit., pp. 17, 37, 38, 56, 57, 61, 72, 75, 15, 76.


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The factors which prevented the Nazis from having a larger rearmamentwere:

a) the fear of larger deficits;b) the government’s unwillingness to ask for civilian sacrifices;c) Hitler’s inability to subordinate various private interests to his aims;d) a lack of efficiency in the direction of the programme.” 24)

In another statement it is confirmed:

“It was shown that the precision mechanism of National Socialist militarismwas working neither according to a planned overall strategy nor according toa long-term planning of an armament programme.” 25)

On 5 May 1938, General Ludwig Beck, Chief of the Army General Staff, haddiagnosed the military-political situation, and he also cited this as one of the reasonsfor his opposition to Hitler:

“…1. Germany’s military situation, when considered in its entirety, bearsno comparison to the impotence of former years. However, when viewed inrelative terms, it cannot be regarded as strong as in 1914, because for years allof the powers that would possibly be against Germany have also been rearmingto a substantial degree, sometimes to the fullest extent. Furthermore, as isgenerally known, Germany will have, for years to come, only a deficient armedforces.” 26)

In the period after the Poland campaign,

“the German government started the switch-over of the country’s industryonto the tracks of war and began to expand hurriedly production for war.” 27)

Hereby even the Communists concede that Germany’s industry – at least in itsessential components __ at the outbreak of war had not been “switched-over ontothe tracks of war and war production had not yet been expanded”.

“The main reason forcing the German High Command to postpone thedate of the offensive [against France] several times was the fact that theGermans were not able to accomplish the formation of the essential armyunits in time.” 27)

24) ibid., pp. 79, 80, 81.25) W. Hofer, Der Nationalsozialismus – Dokumente 1933-1945, p. 214.26) ibid., p. 340.27) Platanova, Pavlenko, Parotkina, “The Second World War”, (Russian), pp. 69-70.


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If the Reich had been building-up armaments for an offensive purpose foryears and had been drilling and training, then it should have been in a position, atleast several months after the outbreak of the war, “to form its army units in time”!

Soviet sources also confirm that the German campaign in France was carriedout not with superior, but rather with numerically inferior forces:

“The armed forces of Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, takenaltogether, totalled 142 divisions (according to other sources, even 156divisions); they were confronted by 136 German-fascist divisions...

Given this power balance and the resources available, there is no basis forasserting the vulnerability of the Allies or their being ill-prepared for war inthe technological field and to be talking about the decisive superiority of thefascist aggressor.” 28)

“It became evident already during the campaign of Poland that the Germanartillery was not equal to the task of returning fire under the conditions of therapid tempo of the fighting, not only qualitatively but also quantatively. TheGerman High Command was compelled to re-enforce the effectiveness of theartillery fire with the assistance of the air force... The miscalculation of Hitler’sgenerals in regard to the artillery were to bear grave consequences for theGerman-fascist army in the course of the Second World War.” 29)

“American military experts have revealed the fact that Churchill’s criticismsof alleged British and French lag in armament and his allegations aboutoverwhelming German superiority and activity in armament were utterly withoutfoundation...

An official report submitted to the Secretary of the Army of the UnitedStates in October, 1947, entitled ‘Foreign Logistical Organizations andMethods’, exposed the gross inaccuracy of Churchill’s figures and charges.”30)

This report can be found in a publication of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.It had been transferred there, without any protest, from an official survey of theAmerican War Department. We are dealing here with an admission from the westernopponent that was validated as correct by the eastern opponent31):

“In 1938 Germany produced only 3,350 combat planes or 5,235 militaryaircraft of all types – very few indeed with which to wage a long war. In 1939,

28) W.A. Sekistow, op. cit., p. 85.29) ibid., p. 133.30) E. Hughes, Winston Churchill – British Bulldog – His Career in War and Peace , pp.162, 163.31) A.M. Nekritsch, “The Politics of British Imperialism in Europe” (Russian), p. 436, quotes:

Hanson W. Baldwin, “Hitler’s Power in 1939”, New York Times, 9 May 1948. Baldwin’s reportis based on a survey made by the US War Department in 1947.


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on the eve of the war, Germany produced 4,733 combat planes or 8,295 militaryaircraft of all types, England – 8,000 military planes of all types...

Therefore, between the airfleets of England and Germany alone there existedalmost no quantitative difference. Germany produced mainly fighter planesand bombers, England continued to place the emphasis on the production offighter aircraft.

In the last four months of 1939 (that is, in the first four months after thewar had started), Germany produced only 247 tanks and self-propelled guns,while the British produced 314 tanks.” 30 + 32)

“In September 1939, the sum total of all tanks produced in Germanyamounted to about 3,000, of which only 300 were medium-heavy. Until 1939not a single new armament factory had been built in Germany…(W germanskeuwoenneu promüschlennosti do 1939 goda ne bülo wüstroeno ni odnogo nowogopuschetschnogo sawoda).

When Germany invaded Poland, the Hitler-army was equipped for onlysix weeks of combat! The German air force could count on only 1,000 aircraftfor tactical aerial fighting (the first line), also the supply of bombs was sufficientfor only 3 months of war (calculated according to the quota used in the Polandcampaign); the ground forces had in total only three Panzer divisions, whilethe reserve of Panzers numbered 600; the navy had 53 submarines at its disposal.

Therefore, Hitler-Germany could only wage a short war and, in fact,concurrently against only a single opponent.” 31)

One would do well to read this quotation more than once and to pay attentionto the source. One page further on it is stated that Germany was only able toincrease her output of aircraft, tanks and all the other remaining armaments manytimes over, because she had managed to crush France and to drive off the BritishArmy from the Continent and, thereupon, help herself to the rich sources ofoccupied Europe.

Accordingly, Germany in 1939 had at her disposal in aircraft, tanks andmunition, proportionate to her population (80 million), only slightly more thanhalf of the armaments compared to what Britain had, just one of Germany’s mainopponents (50 million). What is not taken into account here is the Canadian industrythat was working to supply British armaments, as well as the facts that the AmericanPresident Roosevelt had promised wide-ranging assistance to England and Francealready months before the outbreak of war and, furthermore, England was militarilyprotected owing to her island position.

32) B.H. Klein, op. cit., p. 19 confirms these figures: “Before 1938 Germany produced only the very light Mark l and Mark II tank __ types which were

outmoded soon after the beginning of war. Production of the Mark III began in 1938, and theMark IV in 1939. In the last three months of 1939, Germany produced 247 tanks.”


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“In their pro-Ally and anti-revisionist volume The Challenge to Isolation[concerning the treaties dictated by the victors after the First World War], theAmerican professors William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason offer the finalrefutation of Churchill’s absurd charges of overwhelming German armamentin 1939:

‘There can now be little doubt that the Germans in 1939 were far frombeing prepared for a long war on a large scale. Their current war productionwas inferior to that of the combined British and French and they had remarkablylittle in the way of reserves. Of the hundred divisions they put into the fieldagainst Poland only three were mechanized and none completely motorized.In a word, the Germans were equipped for a two-month Blitzkrieg, such asthey waged in Poland. They were by no means equipped for the type of war inwhich they became involved.’” 30)

The German Reich Defence Committee saw a future war as “only a defensivewar”, since “heavy artillery was entirely lacking, tanks were at the test stage andthe ammunition situation was catastrophic”.33) The German “armamentsprogrammes [were] geared to 1943 or 1944”.34) Although an armaments programmeis by itself no proof of an offensive intention, in this example following it isdemonstrated that the war in 1939 had not been “planned” by Germany. The HighCommand of the Army received in December 1938 the order – that is almost ayear before the start of “the war for the conquest of the world”! – that up to theyear 1945 they were to apply themselves only to the task of organizationalrestructuring and training and to desist from every means of preparation for apossible war, which also included preparations for securing the borders.35)

“The West Wall was still short of shutters, turrets and machine gunmounts.” 36)

“In the transportation sphere Germany is not, at the moment, ready forwar.” 37)

Germany’s heavy industry, which depended 80 per cent on the import of ironand manganese, had done nothing in the way of stockpiling in the event of war.38)

33) IMT, vol. XIX, p. 11: Prof. Exner, defence counsel for General Jodl.34) T. Taylor, op. cit., p. 277.35) H. Laternser, Verteidigung deutscher Soldaten, p. 28.36) T. Taylor, op. cit., p. 281.37) ibid., p. 280: statement of Colonel Gercke, former Chief of the Transport Section of the Army

General Staff.38) L.P. Lochner, Die Mächtigen und der Tyrann, p. 226.


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Hardly any of the essential raw material were in stock or could have been producedin sufficient quantity.39) The rolling-stock of the national railway [Reichsbahn]was less than in 1914.40) The change-over from a peacetime economy to a wareconomy had to be improvised, since there existed neither any pre-plannedguidelines, nor any coordinating measures, nor any standardization criteria, norany limiting of types, nor any appropriate planning of personnel.41)

“Some isolated measures, as for example the stockpiling of foodstuffs,demonstrate clearly that those in charge of the agrarian policy of the GermanReich before 1939 were more likely expecting to be forced into becomingself-supporting in terms of food for some length of time ahead, rather than tobe counting on any yield from large areas of super-abundance resulting froman occupation by German troops.” 42)

A further admission from a Soviet source:

“One of the weak spots of the Hitlerite war organization is, above all, thetotally inadequate preparation of the technological-material foundation of theReich, which was not geared in its economy for a war of global proportionsagainst the coalition of the great powers. This was mainly caused by insuffi-cient supplies and stocks of several of the most essential types of strategicalraw materials, the dependence of the armed forces on the importing of theseraw materials from abroad, and the continual restrictions involved that wereplaced upon this import. The general cuts in exports and Germany’s enormousnational debt caused many economic problems which had a direct bearing onwar production output and the condition of the armed forces.

It is also necessary to point out that when measured against the demands ofa world war the Wehrmacht had at its disposal a limited arsenal with regard toarmoured vehicles and, especially, to war stock piles. The lack of an essentialfleet of medium and heavy tanks, the predominance of light tanks, which, aspractice was soon to show, did not fulfil the protection requirements becauseof their date of construction, imposed a limit to the size of the tank units andmade it necessary to improvise their formation ...

The Hitlerite State could not withstand the burden of a long war against thecoalition of European states.” 43)

It was especially the Army General Staff that feared military action of thewestern powers in the case of a conflict with Poland:

39) Bilanz des Zweiten Weltkrieges, Bericht der Sachverständigen (Specialists Report), p. 272.40) ibid., p. 302.41) ibid., p. 215.42) ibid., p. 332.43) D.M. Projektor, op. cit., p. 9.


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“It was well known in Berlin that the combined forces of France, Englandand Poland could outdo the Wehrmacht... by quite a large margin. The war ontwo fronts has always been a nightmare for the German militarists, but in theprevalent conditions of 1939 it could have disastrous consequences for theThird Reich. All these fears are clearly evident in the various strategical andoperational plans of the Army General Staff.” 44)

Britain, France and the Soviet Union would have been capable in 1939, with“no fewer than 270 divisions, with thousands of tanks and planes to clamp theGerman army in the vice of two fronts.” 45)

In the last year of peace (from 1 January to 5 September 1939), Germany hadobtained war materials to the value of 23, 000 (23 thousand) dollars, France to thevalue of 16, 000, 000 (16 million) dollars and Great Britain to the value of 21,000, 000 (21 million) dollars, from the USA.46) It can be proved that Germanyranked in a decidedly bottom position by far with regards to purchasing armamentsfrom abroad. This fact too demonstrates that Hitler had not been drafting anyhastily prepared plans or, indeed, armament programmes geared to 1939, as hewas dissuading his generals from any arms escalation even in the summer 1939.He was not anticipating the likelihood of a decisive crisis before 1943-1945, sothat the construction of roads and the urban development still occupied the centralposition of his economic policy.

There was no German plan of operation at the outbreak of the war, neitheragainst the western neighbour France, nor against the sea power Great Britain47)+48);until the spring of 1939 there was merely a plan for the protection of the easternborder. The drafting of an operational plan against Poland (Operation “White”)was only ordered on 3 April 1939 49) and, in fact, with the explicit explanation, “incase of need, to eliminate any threat from this direction”.50) This was done at thetime when an armed conflict was becoming plainly evident, brought about by theannouncement of the British letter of licence, in conjunction with the chauvinisticand warlike posturing of the Poles, “when their own excessively overestimatedstrength apparently blinded them to the deadly peril” 51). Even immediately afterthe campaign of Poland, no plans for an offensive against the West had been

44) ibid., p. 19.45) ibid., p. 20.46) S. Hedin, Amerika im Kampf der Kontinente, p. 92.47) H. Springer, Das Schwert auf der Waage, p. 183.48) W. Hofer, Die Entfesselung des Zweiten Weltkrieges, p. 106.49) T. Taylor, op. cit., p. 264.50) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten 1938-1939, vol. II, doc. 53.51) H. Mau and H. Krausnick, Deutsche Geschichte der jüngsten Vergangenheit 1933 bis 1945,

p. 133.


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drawn up in Germany.52)

“Few preparations were made for even a defensive war against France. Asmall section of the German air force was stationed in western Germany, ‘toprevent France from obtaining complete freedom of action in the air’. Onlytwo army divisions were placed on the Siegfried Line; two more were addedin September – as against a potential French strength of more than 80 divi-sions.” 53)

“The Germans won a decisive victory [in the campaign in France in 1940]without great superiority in either manpower or equipment.” 53)

Air Force

The total ready-for-action strength of the German Luftwaffe [air force] is statednot only by the German, but also by the opposing, side as 3,000 aircraft,54) othersources indicate 1,000 bombers and 1,050 fighters.55) The possibilities for thereplacement of planes were very scanty.56) There were no four-engined bombers,and even the twin-engined medium bombers (Dornier 17 and Heinkel 111) didnot prove adequate.

“The Junkers 88, the standard long-range bomber during the war, wasavailable by 1939 only in small numbers, and did not see service in Poland.Good as it was, the twin-engined Junkers 88 was not a true heavy bomber.” 57)

Britain’s and France’s combat-ready airfleets alone comprised 7,300 aircraft.58)

In 1939, Britain had 2,327 aircraft of first line capabilities at her disposal of which1,715 were based at home ports (comprising 855 bombers, 560 fighters, 300reconnaissance planes), 222 were with the navy and 354 were overseas.59) Up tothe beginning of the war the German Reich had not even been developing anylong-range strategic assault bomber-aircraft, whereas Britain had done so since1934 and the United States since 1935.59)

“Thus it was discovered [by British and American economists] that her

52) B.H. Liddel-Hart, The Other Side of the Hill, p. 114.53) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., pp. 167, 115.54) T. Taylor, op. cit., p. 253.55) B. Klein, op. cit., p. 19.56) T. Taylor, op. cit., p. 255.57) ibid., p. 254.58) Kommunist, No. 4, March 1959, p. 138.59) E. Spetzler, Luftkrieg und Menschlichkeit, pp. 224-225.


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[Germany’s] aircraft production in the autumn of 1939 had been 675 a month,no more than that of Great Britain; her tank production was less; she had startedthe war with only three months’ supply of aviation petrol.” 60)

“It was Britain placing the strongest emphasis on strategic aerial warfare,having already on 1 April 1918 created the RAF as an independent part of thearmed forces, their command clearly separated from that of the army and thenavy. Britain had already at that time formed several bomber units into an‘Independent Air Force’ for a strategic air war and had been continuing thisdevelopment since 1925. The aircraft best suited to this purpose was consideredto be the heavy, strongly armed long-range bomber, which it had beendeveloping since 1934 and which had been in series production since 1936, sothat by 1941 it was available, at long last, in sufficient number for aerial warfare.

Long before 1939, Britain’s purposeful groundwork was geared to thistask, and it incorporated in its plan for an aerial war against Germany a fixedsequence for striking targets and which, from its inception, allowed for aconsiderable time outlay to ensure success.” 59)

“The Germans had never planned for independent [of the front line troops]bombing. Their bomber-force was an auxiliary for the army on the ground,and they had to improvise the air-attack on Great Britain in the summer of1940.”61)

The following statement also deserves attention:

“Britain was making studies of German industry with a view to strategicaerial attacks for the first time in the mid-twenties. The United States hadprepared for entering the European air war with a list which contained 124targets from the field of electrical power stations, transport systems and thefuel industry, as well as 30 targets from the aviation and light metals industries!Details for the particular bomber units appointed to carrying out the attackswere already set down in 1932 in the United States and Britain.” 62)

Navy

The German fleet was significantly decreased compared to 1914 63) and thuswas inferior to the French and, faced with the “overwhelming Anglo-Frenchsuperiority... could not venture on the high seas...” 64) There were no aircraft carriers;

60) I. Colvin, op. cit., p. 274.61) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 116.62) US Navy, August 1956, no. 8, p. 837 seq. Lieutenant Commander Richard G. Alexander quoted

in Marine Rundschau, No. 3, 1957, p. 95.63) V.P. Potyomkin, “History of Diplomacy” (Russian), p. 764.64) T. Taylor, op. cit., pp. 259-260.


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there were 57 U-boats of which only 42 were “of any real military value” 65). If onetakes into account that less than a third of the total number of U-boats [submarines]can be “on mission” [enemy engagement], while the remaining ones are eitheroutward-bound or on their return journey or at the shipyard for overhauling or areassigned to training purposes, then the small number of German U-boats in 1939diminishes even further.

“However, not more than half were large enough and sufficiently broken infor action in the Atlantic. In fact, eighteen [U-boats] were sent into actionagainst England at the start of war, and three others put to sea in the Baltic tosupport the operations against Poland.” 64)

“From 1933 to 1938, the German Navy had made no plans looking towarda high seas fleet which could rival that of England.” 66)

Compared with the 57 very much smaller German U-boats, Britain and Francehad 135 submarines at the beginning of the war.67) Admiral of the Fleet Raederhad this to add:

“Our two battleships and 3 armoured cruisers were facing a total of 22British and French battleships. We had no aircraft carriers. The enemy, on theother hand, had seven aircraft carriers. We had two heavy cruisers as comparedto 22 of the other side. The ratio for the light cruisers was 6:61 and for thedestroyers and torpedo boats 34:255.” 68)

Winston Churchill stated on 16 March 1939 in the House of Commons:

“The German Navy in the next few years will not be able to form a line ofbattle for a general engagement.” 69)

Winston Churchill in his memoirs:

“Now [1939] the Germans had only begun rebuilding their navy and hadno ability even to form a line of battle…

Thus there was no challenge in surface craft to our command of the seas.

65) F.O. Miksche, Unconditional Surrender, p. 223.66) T. Taylor, op. cit., p. 257.67) Bilanz des Zweiten Weltkrieges, op. cit., p. 79.68) E. Raeder, Mein Leben , vol. II, pp. 172-173; another source mentions 11 Anglo-French aircraft

carriers – Bilanz des Zweiten Weltkrieges, op. cit., p. 118.69) W. Churchill, His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, vol. VI, p. 6088.


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There was no doubt that the British Navy was overwhelmingly superior to theGerman in strength and in numbers, and no reason to assume that its science,training or skill was in any way defective…

It had to face enormous and innumerable duties, rather than an antagonist.” 70)

A Soviet source:

“The German Fleet Air-Arm was totally inadequate in 1939 in Germany.”71)

Admiral Erich Raeder declared before the Nuremberg tribunal on 17 May1946:

“There is manifold proof to show that I was not expecting a war in theautumn [1939] at all, and in view of the small extent of rearmament of theGerman Navy this was quite natural. I have stated quite clearly in my speechbefore the U-boat officers in Swinemünde that we could not count on it.” 72)

Great Britain

Great Britain in 1939 was by no means as scantily provided with armamentsor, indeed, orientated to a defensive policy, as one is always led to believe. This isestablished by the fact alone that “British production of airplanes and tanks equalledor exceeded that of National Socialist Germany” 73) – not to mention the navy,unsurpassed in strength and capacity. Before 1914, as well as before 1939, theBritish Admiralty had to hand plans of attack devised for the destruction of theGerman fleet and for invasion across the Channel.74)

Already at the close of 1937 Churchill stated,

“that the navy was strong and that ‘even during the years of disarmament atleast £50,000,000 sterling was spent every year upon keeping in order theplant and organization already stabilized on the largest scale’.” 75)

On 3 October 1938, three days after signing the German-British declaration ofpeace and friendship, N. Chamberlain was unexpectedly announcing rearmamentat all costs.

70) W. Churchill, op. cit., vol. I, book II, “War in Twilight”, p. 323.71) Platanova, Pavlenko, Parotkina, op. cit., p. 97.72) IMT, vol. XIV, p. 79.73) E. Hughes, op. cit., p. 162.74) H. Grimm, Die Erzbischhofsschrift, p. 121.75) E. Hughes, op. cit., p. 160.


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“For a long period now we have been engaged in this country in a greatrearmament programme, which is daily increasing in pace and volume.” 76)

On 22 February 1939, one month before “Prague”, in Blackburn:

“The figures (of our rearmament) are indeed staggering. Perhaps they havegot so big that people have ceased to be able to take them in.” 77)

Even assuming that he was exaggerating, one has to take into considerationthat such statements, coming from the mouth of a Prime Minister, would make alasting impact on the nations “affected”. Indeed, they were intended to goad theFrench ally into an intensified arms built-up. Their effect was to spread thearmament fever and a war psychosis to all sides and push towards a crisis.

“Britain had ready six divisions, could, ‘in the shortest possible time’ transferanother 10 to the Continent, and ‘in the second echelon’ add another sixteendivisions – in all, therefore, thirty-two divisions. The air forces of Great Britaincomprised more than 3,000 first-line aircraft.” 78)

On 1 September 1939 Chamberlain declared in the House of Commons:

“The main and most satisfactory point to observe is that there is to-day noneed to make an appeal in a general way for recruits such as was issued byLord Kitchener 25 years ago. That appeal has been anticipated by many months,and the men are already available.” 79)

With her many Dominions and England-friendly nations in all parts of theworld, ocean-ruling Albion was able to procure raw materials and armaments evenin time of war. In 1939, the volume of armament of the British Isles was alreadyroughly on a par with that of the level of Germany. Proportionate to the population(Germany = 80 million, England = 50 million people), it was even twice as much.In addition, in the case of war, Germany was left at the mercy of an effectualblockade. Britannia, on the other hand, ruled the waves. If one wants to assess thearmament potential of Britain, France and Germany in the year 1939, one has totake these political, strategical and geographical factors into account.

Likewise, one has to bear in mind that the British War Cabinet had based theirstrategy on a lengthy war. England was using a minimum of her own forces, at

76) “German White Book” No. 2, doc. 218.77) ibid., doc. 242.78) I.M. Maisky, op. cit., p. 172.79) “British Blue Book”, doc. 105.


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least at the beginning of the war, while she was proposing to enter into the fray thearmies of her allies instead. Furthermore, this is not inconsistent with Chamberlain’sinitial notion that Hitler could be defeated easily and quickly with the support ofthe resistance within his own ranks: in this case also, Britain would not require anoverpoweringly large army contingent on the continent.

“At the beginning of September 1939, the British War Cabinet stated thatthe war would go on for three years, and prepared a plan of mobilization forthe reserves, based on this time scale.

This plan proposed an increase of the fleet, the creation of 55 divisions bythe autumn of 1941, as well as the expansion of the fleet of aircraft to 12,000planes by spring 1940. Germany’s situation with regard to the essential kindsof strategical raw materials was considered to be extremely serious: Accord-ing to British plans there were stocks for only 6 months…

The principal method of economic warfare against Germany, for whichplans had been drawn up since spring of 1939, was the naval-blockade. It wasto be translated into action by the Home Fleet in the North Sea, in theMediterranean and in parts of the Baltic.” 80)

Already several years before the war, “an advisory committee for trade enquiriesin wartime” was set up in Britain. These so-called “blockade-planners” had, in1937 already, worked out plans for a blockade against three hypothetical opponents:Germany, Italy and Japan.81) The world-wide scale of these measures bears animpressive testimony to the balance of power at a time, when the real concern inGermany was how to achieve good housekeeping of raw materials (as there wasmuch too little of it, not too much), and other countries had already begun cancellingtrade agreements with Germany, particularly those covering nonferrous metals. In1937, the Association of German Heavy Industries had written a memorandum,the contents of which were secretly passed on to the British government by Dr.Goerdeler, estimating that Germany fell short of her requirements for raw materialsby 40-60 %, had a shortage of 25-30 % in food stuffs and animal feeds, and herexports had shrunk by one-third.

“The maximum home output in the next four years would not producemore than 50 per cent of iron and steel requirements, 70 per cent of zinc, 45per cent of lead, and 15 per cent of copper. Home production of raw materialswas not more than 25 per cent of Germany’s needs.” 81)

80) D.M. Projektor, op. cit., p. 413.81) I. Colvin, op. cit., pp. 140, 152.


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France

In August 1939 France’s mobilization was practically completed. WinstonChurchill spoke of 5 million trained French soldiers.82) On 28 August, the BritishAmbassador in Paris, Phipps, reported to London a conversation with FrenchForeign Minister Bonnet:

“M. Bonnet was calm and seemed not altogether unhopeful of the possi-bility of maintaining peace. He thinks it curious that Hitler should have allowedthe mobilization of about 2,700,000 French combatants without strikingbeforehand. Of the total of about 5,500,000 men that general mobilizationwould produce, there would be little more than half a million more combatants,the remainder being composed of persons fulfilling war services in the rear,etc.” 83)

The Soviet Ambassador in London was well informed of the French fightingstrength:

“France [in 1939] had at her disposal 110 divisions without reckoning itsanti-aircraft forces, its coastal defence forces and its troops in Africa. In additionthere were about 200,000 soldiers of Republican Spain, who had taken refugein France after the victory of Franco and had asked to be incorporated in theFrench forces. The French Army possessed 4,000 modern tanks and 3,000large-calibre guns of 150 mm and higher (without reckoning divisional artillery).The French Air Force consisted of 2,000 first-line aircraft, of which abouttwo-thirds were modern as then understood – namely, aircraft with a speed of450-500 km. per hour in the case of fighters and 400-450 km. in the case ofbombers.” 78)

France had at her disposal in June 1940 – not counting Britain, Holland andBelgium – a much stronger tank force than Germany had.84) Before their entry intothe war, England and France had spent – each country individually – as much ormore on rearmaments than had Germany.85)

“The total war expenditure for Britain and France, having been standard-ized along military points, in accord with the existing agreements and obliga-tions, were in the year 1939 much above those of Germany. At the outbreak of

82) W. Churchill, His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, vol. VI, p. 6112: Speech on 27 April 1939,House of Commons; also Into Battle.

83) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 442.84) Deutsche Hochschullehrerzeitung, 4/1961, p. 18, quotes: Colonel Goutard, The Battle of France

1940, New York 1959.85) B. Klein, op. cit., p. 19.


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war in September 1939, France had a considerably bigger army than Germany,well equipped and securely entrenched behind the famous, imposing and, aswas believed, impregnable Maginot Line.” 86)

Czecho-Slovakia (1938)

“Between thirty and forty Czech divisions were deploying upon Germany’seastern frontier, and the weight of the French Army, at odds of nearly eight toone, began to lie heavy on the Western Wall. A hostile Russia might operatefrom Czech airfields and Soviet armies might wend their way forward throughPoland or Rumania.” 87)

The Czech army, whose peacetime footing amounted to 120,000 men,93) hadin midsummer 1938 a million and a half men under arms in the thirty to fortydivisions (twenty-one regular divisions, fifteen or sixteen second-line divisionsalready mobilized 88)), equipped “by a highly organized and powerful industrialmachine”, standing “behind the strongest fortress line in Europe”.89)

“To break the Czech Army and pierce or turn the Bohemian fortress linewould require practically the whole of thirty-five divisions – the main strengthof the mobile and fully-trained German Army... Thus at the moment of attackingthe Czechs only five effective and eight Reserve divisions would be availableto protect the whole of Germany’s western frontier against the French army,which could mobilize a hundred divisions.” 88) + 90)

“The Czechoslovak army was a formidable force, its well-equipped 34divisions probably a match in themselves for the half-trained German army of1938.” 91)

Poland

The strength of the Polish army at the beginning of war was estimated, as isgenerally acknowledged, at about 55 infantry divisions, 12 cavalry brigades andtwo motorized units.92) In autumn 1939 Poland had at her disposal 1.5 million

86) P.H. Nicoll, Britain’s Blunder (German edition), p. 120.87) W. Churchill, op. cit., vol. I, book I, “The Gathering Storm”, p. 244.88) ibid., p. 263.89) ibid., p. 243.90) ibid., p. 224.91) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 154.92) T. Taylor, op. cit., p. 269.


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soldiers. Having reached the already quite sizeable number of 200,000 (211,000men) in the Polish peacetime army,93) a comparison of the figures clearly demon-strates the aggressive intentions of the Polish army, whose gradual mobilizationhad been underway since spring 1939; especially when considering that thismobilization was undertaken without having been threatened or, indeed, havingbeen made to feel threatened by Germany. In spring, on 25 March 1939, the BritishAmbassador in Warsaw, Kennard, told his Foreign Minister that according toconfidential information from competent persons, 750,000 men had already beencalled up.94) The Polish air force had more than 1,200 planes at its disposal inautumn 1939.95)

Without a doubt, the Polish military was still set fast in outdated strategicaland technical ideas: they were attaching too much importance to the cavalry,underestimated the enemy’s capabilities, had at their disposal insufficient tanks,anti-tank guns, artillery, aircraft and anti-aircraft units. Furthermore, their strategicalimmovability, the absence of any defensive strategy whatsoever, the poor fightingspirit of the many foreign-nationality members of the minorities in the Polisharmy (only 52.7% of the population of the State of ‘Poland’ were Polish) and, notleast, the illusion being entertained by Warsaw regarding their “friends” France,Britain and the United States, have all contributed considerably to the catastropheof September 1939. All the same, the fact remains that in an evaluation of Poland’smilitary potential before the outbreak of war the German leadership could nothave taken all of these deficiencies into account while, on the other hand, thePolish leadership had not been aware of these shortcomings. The Polish leadershiphad geared their policy towards the deployment of a strong military force – andexpressed in figures it was considerable for this state! – and any German Chancellorwould have had to respond bearing this policy in mind – and not any perchance-weaknesses of the Polish army.

The Soviet Union

While the German Reich in 1939 had 75 divisions, 1,000 operational aircraft(tactical air force) and 3,000 tanks at her disposal, the Soviet Union alone couldboast, in the summer of 1939, that she could deploy at a moment’s notice, for thefight against Germany on her western front, 136 divisions, 5,000 medium and

93) F.O. Miksche, op. cit., p. 222.94) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 523.95) Kommunist, No. 4, March 1959, p. 138.


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heavy guns, 9,000 to 10,000 tanks and more than 5,000 (according to some sources5,500) aeroplanes.96)

This was no mere showing-off: The Soviet Union had formally volunteeredthese forces during the British-French-Russian military convention in July/August1939 to the Western Powers for immediate fighting against Germany – which alsoreveals a lot about the attitude of mind of the Soviets, who were undertaking thecompletion of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact at the same time, on 23August 1939. Not because of the refusal by Britain or France, but mainly becauseof the Polish and the Rumanian refusal to allow passage of the Red Army acrosstheir territory, did these negotiations founder, so that the enormous might of theRed Army did not go into action in Europe in the year 1939. That this offer ofdeployment of arms was proposed in earnest is also confirmed by Soviet historians.They affirm that the Soviet government “during the whole course of the pre-warperiod was prepared to use armed force against Germany (the ‘aggressor’).” 97)

“The Red Army had been vastly increased in recent months...The incorporation of reserve units in the Red Army in late 1938 had

increased the Russian peacetime army to two million men, which was nearlytriple the number of peacetime German soldiers.” 98)

During the years from 1934 to 1938 the Red Army had doubled their manpowerand their fighting strength, according to a statement made by the former SovietDefence Commissar, Voroshilov, on 13 March 1939. The vast USSR, the mostmilitant country in the world, had for years been shifting the main emphasis of theindustrial output onto the heavy and armaments industries, and already since theyear 1937 was spending about 25% of the total Soviet national income on militarypurposes (Germany 1937 = 10%, 1938/39 = 15%).99)

96)Geschichtsfälscher. Aus Geheimdokumenten über die Vorgeschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges,p. 43. (“Forgers of History”. From secret documents on the events preceding the outbreak ofthe Second World War), p. 43.“The History of the USSR: the Age of Socialism” (Russian), p. 530;“International Life” (Russian), 1959 No. 3, p. 139;W.G. Truchanovsky, “England’s Foreign Policy” (Russian), p. 362,and I.M. Maisky, op. cit., p. 172.

97) Platanova, Pavlenko, Parotkina, op. cit., p. 17.98) D. Hoggan, op. cit., p. 198.99) ibid., pp. 423-424.


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Psychological Preparations for War

In view of all these facts, what form did the anti-German propaganda take?Winston Churchill would begin his agitating, by making false statements against

his better judgment, as soon as he touched upon his favourite theme of “Germanrearmament”. Then these assertions of his, proven to be falsified, were not onlytaken up by world-wide propaganda – “a free press” – but also by governments,that used them for their own ends: principally Britain, France, the United Statesand the USSR.

So, for example, in a speech to his constituent on 27 August 1938:

“But the danger to peace will not be removed until the vast German armieswhich have been called from their homes into the ranks have been dispersed.For a country which is itself not menaced by anyone, in no fear of anyone, toplace over fifteen hundred thousand soldiers upon a war footing is a verygrave step ... It seems to me, and I must tell it to you plainly, that these greatforces have not been placed upon a war footing without an intention to reach aconclusion within a very limited space of time...” 100)

For those weak with figures, fifteen hundred thousand is 1.5 million. Severalpages further Churchill informs us that the Czechs alone in May 1938 had called1.5 million men to the colours; however, this fact is not embellished with a similarlytinted commentary. When the Czecho-Slovakian multinational state with apopulation of 15 million (of these, only 7 million are Czechs) mobilizes 1.5 millionmen, then this, apparently, is considered to be quite all right. When Poland withher population of 35 million (of these, 15 million are foreign minorities) likewisemobilizes 1.5 million men, then this, too, is considered to be quite right. But forGermany and her 80 million people to have, in the face of an intensifying crisis,just a self same size army of 1.5 million, which is in proportion to the populationonly a fifth part of the Czech contingent – this then is seen by Churchill and thepeople who share his views as a peace-threatening crime and a proof of her strivingfor world-domination. Churchill in a speech in 1936:

“Germany, on the other hand, fears no one. She is arming in a mannerwhich has never been seen in German history. She is led by a handful oftriumphant desperados. Money is running short, discontents are arising beneaththese despotic rulers. Very soon they will have to choose on the one handbetween economic and financial collapse or internal upheaval, and on the other

100) W. Churchill, op. cit., vol. I, book I, “The Gathering Storm”, pp. 227-228.


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a war which could have no other object and which, if successful, can have noother result than a Germanized Europe under Nazi control. Therefore it seemsto me that all the old conditions present themselves again [the striving forhegemony of a Continental Power that must be eradicated] and that our nationalsalvation depends upon our gathering once again all the forces of Europe tocontain, to restrain, and if necessary to frustrate German domination.” 101)

“In 1938-39”, Churchill frankly states in his memoirs,

“British military expenditure of all kinds reached £304 millions, and [the]German was at least £1,500 millions. It is probable that in this last year beforethe outbreak, Germany manufactured at least double, and possibly treble, themunitions of Britain and France put together, and also that her great plants fortank production reached full capacity. They were therefore getting weapons ata far higher rate than we.” 102)

“The French forty-hour week could not rival the output of a Germanyworking harsh hours under wartime conditions. ...

The German munitions plants were working at high pressure. The wheelsrevolved and the hammers descended day and night in Germany, making itswhole industry an arsenal, and welding all its population into one disciplinedwar machine.” 103)

What Churchill was proposing to arrange with the help of his agitating aboutthe German rearmament, he explained in the House of Commons debate on 16March 1939 quite openly:

“It must be remembered that Germany, like all countries, is now at fullextension in armament production, groaning and straining in that tremendouseffort. Already she is spending 26 per cent of her national income on warlikepreparations. All labour, skilled and unskilled, is employed to the utmost. Thepark railings and even iron crosses in the graveyards are being melted down asscrap....

Therefore, I was very glad to hear Lord Chatfield yesterday lay down thesound doctrine that it is the duty of the Royal Navy to ‘seek out and destroythe enemy’s fleet’. That is the true note to strike.” 104)

To be any more prejudiced and provocative is all but impossible! But even thefact that this man, in one and the same book, was contradicting himself with such

101) ibid., p. 163.102) ibid., p. 263.103) ibid., pp. 185, 165.104) W. Churchill, His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, vol. VI, pp. 6087, 6089.


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frequency, even when discussing the matter of German armament and that here,too, “Winston could produce this sort of schoolboy rhetoric by the yard,”105) didnot seem to bother anyone:

“The German war machine had lumbered falteringly over the frontier[German-Austrian frontier, March 1938] and come to a standstill near Linz. Inspite of perfect weather and road conditions the majority of the tanks brokedown. Defects appeared in the motorized heavy artillery. The road from Linzto Vienna was blocked with heavy vehicles at a standstill. General vonReichenau ... was deemed responsible for a breakdown which exposed theunripe conditions of the German Army at this stage in its reconstruction.” 106)

On the occasion of a meeting at the War Ministry, the leading German generalsdrew up a memorandum, which was presented to the Reich Chancellery on 27September 1938. Churchill confirms:

“Emphasis is laid on the shortage of officers. No fewer than forty-eightthousand officers and a hundred thousand N.C.O.s were necessary to bring the[German] army up to war strength, and in the event of a general mobilization,no fewer than eighteen divisions would find themselves devoid of trainedsubordinate commanders.” 107)

Also “anti-Fascist historians” need to be tied down to the question of the Germanrearmament, so that they must discuss their assertions in some detail. Thus, abook published under US-licence in the year 1947 contains the following briefreference:

“The vast majority of the population knew nothing of secret meetings andsecret orders.” 108)

Here too, not a single word is to be found about the subject matter or aboutquestions relating to work and to personnel matters of the alleged secret meetingsand orders in connection with the German rearmament. But such emptypronouncements are historically worthless. The author continues:

“The number of firms that was working on certain armament projects wasa limited one before 1939, the work itself was ‘screened off’.” 108)

105) E. Hughes, op. cit., p. 125.106) W. Churchill, op. cit., vol. I, book I, “The Gathering Storm” p. 210.107) ibid., p. 246.108) J. Eckert, Schuldig oder entlastet? p. 110.


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Here, likewise, no amount, no locality and no product is mentioned. Important,however, is the admission that the number of German firms engaged in rearmamentswas until 1939 a limited number, a statement contradicting all of the inflammatorytheories of propaganda. Continuing (one needs to pay close attention to the line ofreasoning):

“There are grounds for the supposition that the stated economic pro-gramme of the party was designed according to the demands of rearmamentand war; in this the ‘autarky’ of the German economy was to be all-important…New industrial plants of vast dimensions emerged, which were to produceBUNA as a substitute for rubber, make petrol from coal and, allegedly,manufacture the Volkswagen, so as to free the German economy from depend-ency on foreign countries…

The financing [of the thought-out plan for these large-scale measures], whichwas assuming gigantic proportions, was a job in itself that was solved byincreasing the volume of currency in circulation and by increasing the deficitspending of the Reich.” 108)

So when these measures that any country in the world would catalogue undernational economy and not under political armament and that were “devouringsums of gigantic proportions needed for the financing”, then, by all accounts,there should not have been much space and financial strength left over for theactual rearming. What in fact was the reality?

“The expansion of the ‘four-year plan factories’ which were to reduce thedependency on imports had been planned to be fully developed only in 1943.Their present capacity in output [1939] was of no consequence.” 109)

No matter which historical research we look at, everywhere we find the verylow German armaments level confirmed – just as we find the systematic incitingof other nations with lies about the “feverish rearming of the Third Reich from1933 onwards”, and that the “ending of the economic crisis in Germany (1933)was accomplished by a fully developed armament programme, thereby threateningthe peace of the nations”.

In the opinion of these moralists, what might a sovereign state be allowed atall? Should it be permitted to rearm for self-defence? As we can see, all the others“may” do so – but not the Germans. Germany was encircled by hostile nationsthat were expertly equipped and better armed, bound to each other by militaryalliances. During the whole period that the Reich government was in office, “not

109) H. Michaelis, op. cit., p. 22.


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one single new munitions factory was built”. Nonetheless, those self same powersthat were exploiting empires, were accusing Germany of aspiring to worlddomination, of conspiring against peace and of being guilty of criminal planning.

Any of the facts that stand in contradiction to the thesis of a “conspiracy againstworld peace” are, without further ado – one is never at a loss for “reasons” andslogans – clarified as the “amateurism” of the conspiracy.110) Perhaps Hitler couldhave avoided being reproached of “amateurism”, if he had been – emulating theUnited States after the Second World War – stockpiling 75% of all strategicalmaterial reserves for 3 to 5 years, and if he had taken up position in 69 countriesof the globe or rather in over 2,200 individual bases throughout the world 111) –never mind the even more awe-inspiring example of the Soviet Union.

The powers surrounding Germany were not, incidentally, filled with dreadbecause of a “Third Reich armed to the teeth”, but instead were cherishing theillusion to be standing in Berlin within a matter of days after the outbreak of war,aided by their “friends” as well as the power of resistance from within the Reich.Had the Poles, the French, the British or the Soviets been in fear of Germanarmaments or the German determination for attack, then in the year 1939 thePolish public and the Polish authorities would not have behaved with suchunconcealed aggression, recklessness, prejudice and hatred towards the Germanminorities at their mercy and towards the Reich. Likewise, the French, the British,the US-American and the Soviet press organs would not have dared any suchprovocations. Whoever fears the other side because of greater strength would notdeliberately trample upon the other’s legitimate rights, but would carefully weighthem in the balance, because then, within the bounds of all human probability, thethreat of arms-use has vanished.

In the British Cabinet one was fully aware of the true level of the Germanarmament; after all, reliable sources of information were at London’s disposal.That is why it is all the more unforgivable, when influential men in Britain – to saynothing of the “free press” and the BBC – during the thirties should have employedinflammatory agitation about “German rearmament fever”, but who would inprivate assess the German armament and military forces potential as realisticallyas did, for example, Robert Hudson, Secretary of the Department for OverseasTrade, on 9 March 1939 during lunch with the Polish Ambassador in London,Raczynski:

110) W. Hofer, Die Entfesselung des Zweiten Weltkrieges, p. 106.111) Statements of the head of the US Department for Armaments and Mobilization, A. Fleming, in

an interview with the US News and World Report; quoted in Nationale Rundschau, 27 March1957, p. 9 and in Politische Informationen, 5 March 1963.


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“As for the Germans, they were bound to come to terms since they were onthe verge of bankruptcy, having no gold or foreign currency and beingincreasingly short of raw materials.” 112)

The Swedish mediator Birger Dahlerus, certainly above suspicion, was writingwith regard to the assessment of the German Wehrmacht made by the Polishpropaganda during midsummer 1939:

“The German Panzers [tanks] were said to be only cardboard dummies.The German soldiers were said to be deserting in their hundreds. Their uniformswere only barely said to be held together with cords.” 113)

There is not a single document to verify that Poland in 1939 believed in asupposed armaments fever or in a striving for world-domination in Germany!Polish diplomats even used to regard the signing of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 23 August 1939 as clear evidence of “the desperate situationin which the Reich found itself”.114)

“Adding to this (the unleashing of anti-German feelings because of meas-ures taken by the Polish authorities) was the ever worsening war-mongering inthe Polish press and on the radio, where one could not publicize the reportsfast enough about the alleged manifestations of the German condition ofexhaustion to be observed within the Reich, in the sphere of foodstuffs, in theinadequately equipped Wehrmacht and suchlike. The Poles, however, wereportrayed as ‘the best soldiers in the world’, thereby arousing in them a feelingof infinite superiority compared with the Reich. It was believed that the structureof the Polish army, their fighting spirit and their technical equipment, to be‘immeasurably better’ whereas the situation of the Reich, in contrast, washopeless since the encirclement was complete. Poland considered herself aGreat Power…” 115)

These words were not written in the period from 1933 to 1945. It is the resultof a historical research by an expert who, in his book on the German minority inPoland published in 1954, entitled the relevant chapter “Warmongering in Poland”(“Die Kriegshetze in Polen”).

Paul Reynaud, the former French Finance Minister (Prime Minister from Marchto June 1940), said in the Chamber of Deputies on 26 February 1938:

112) E. Raczynski, In Allied London, p. 11.113) B. Dahlerus, Der letzte Versuch, p. 96.114) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, 1938-1939, vol. III, p. 112: the

Polish Ambassador in Moscow, Waclaw Grzybowski.115) T. Bierschenk, Die deutsche Volksgruppe in Polen 1934-1939, p. 345.


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“Is it not common knowledge that the Germans do not have half the officersrequired for the formation of their divisions?” 116)

Likewise, in the year 1938 (November), a manifesto of the Comintern waspublished, stating:

“Hitler-Germany is neither in the military nor in the economic sense readyfor war. She is short of raw materials, foodstuffs, money… Her army does nothave enough trained units…” 117)

These are statements made by influential and well informed politicians – oneyear before the allegedly since 1933 “planned war to win world domination”!

The Soviet Ambassador in London recalled the diplomatic talks between therepresentatives of the Soviet Union, Britain and France in the months before theoutbreak of war, and he drew the conclusion that was equally familiar to all theparticipants of the talks:

“It will be seen that the armed forces of the anticipated signatories of thetriple pact were very impressive, and far surpassed the then forces of Germanyand Italy.” 118)

How did the French Foreign Minister assess the situation?

“We were expecting an easy and quick victory. It must be admitted thatmuch information from abroad led us to believe that our adversary was quitebadly off indeed. I received such bits of news either directly or from ourambassador, who, as was his duty, sent them to us with due reservation.

Apart from the usual old tales of striking German workers and soldierswho refused to fight, we were periodically provided with the hope of animminent assassination, already prepared, which would bring about the downfallof National Socialism.” 119)

And the British Foreign Minister?

“It became more and more apparent to one as Halifax talked ... that whatBritain depends on more than anything else to end the war before the world

116) H. Lebre and M. de Mauny in Les Origines Secrètes de la Guerre 1939-45, p. 31 (Germaned., p. 30).

117) ibid., p. 153 ( German edition, p. 121).118) I.M. Maisky, op. cit., p. 172.119) G. Bonnet, De Munich à la Guerre, p. 373 (German ed., Vor der Katastrophe, p.307).


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120) C. Tansill, op. cit., p. 554: US Ambassador Kennedy to the Secretary of State, Hull, 4 September1939.

121) IMT, vol. XXII, p. 426.

collapses, is the internal collapse inside of Germany. They had definite confi-dence in their secret service reports that the oil and gasoline supply is definitelynot over four months and that there is a definite feeling in Germany againstwar and if it got too tough economically, Hitler would be out.” 120)

The former Foreign Minister of the Reich, Joachim von Ribbentrop, in hisclosing remarks to the IMT in Nuremberg, pertinently outlined the situation of theReich:

“If I deny that this German foreign policy planned and prepared for a warof aggression, that is not an excuse on my part. The truth of this is proved bythe strength that we developed in the course of the Second World War and thefact how weak we were at the beginning of this war. History will believe uswhen I [Ribbentrop] say that we would have prepared a war of aggressionimmeasurably better...

What we intended was to look after our elementary necessities of life, inthe same way that England looked after her own interests in order to makeone-fifth of the world subject to her, and in the same way that the UnitedStates brought an entire continent and Russia brought the largest inland territoryof the world under their hegemony. The only difference between the policiesof these countries as compared with ours is that we demanded parcels of landsuch as Danzig and the Corridor which were taken from us against all rights,whereas the other powers are accustomed to thinking only in terms ofcontinents.” 121)


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The Foreign Policy of the Great Powerson the Eve of War

Great Britain

The Policy of “European Balance of Power”during the Pre-War Years

Winston Churchill describes to us in his memoirs with rare frankness the basicprinciples of British foreign policy before the Second World War. According tothese, from the outset one thing is for certain for any Englishman and that is thatany European Great Power – no matter at what moment in time or under whatcircumstances or in what system of government – was going to be “aggressive”and ruled over by “tyrants” as soon as it had attained a certain degree of strengthand internal stability. Upon these premises a “policy rule” is constructed, andBritain’s foreign policy is always conducted in conformity with it, thereby notonly “guaranteeing” perpetual disagreement within Europe, but she has also beenusing it for administering justice among the nations. Yes indeed, Churchill evenadmitted that for him – and thus for British policy – there was no difference betweenthe “Hitler regime” and the various other forms of government encountered inEuropean history. This leading Englishman thus acknowledges that his own“crusader” role was devoid of any legal foundation and not bound to any ethicalvalues. Over and above that he admits that the British foreign policy had, for thepast 400 years, not been orientated towards rights and justice, nor humanitariansentiments or international understanding, but was rather geared to an autocratic“principle”, whereby all other states would be declared, according to demand,tyrannical, aggressive and criminal.

“For four hundred years the foreign policy of England has been to opposethe strongest, most aggressive, most dominating Power on the Continent...

Faced by Philip II of Spain, against Louis XIV under William III andMarlborough, against Napoleon, against William II of Germany, we joinedwith the less strong Powers, made a combination among them, and thus defeatedand frustrated the continental military tyrant whoever he was, whatever nationhe led…

Observe that the policy of England takes no account of which nation it isthat seeks the overlordship of Europe. The question is not whether it is Spain,


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or the French Monarchy, or the French Empire, or the German Empire, or theHitler regime. It has nothing to do with rulers or nations, it is concerned solelywith whoever is the strongest or the potentially dominating tyrant. Thereforewe should not be afraid of being accused of being pro-French or anti-German.If the circumstances were reversed, we could equally be pro-German and anti-French...” 1)

No British historian, no British government has ever denied these observationsmade by Churchill. On the contrary! Lord Halifax, in his speech on 30 June 1939at the Royal Institute of International Affairs expressed himself in a similar sense.2)

Exactly the same is said in the memorandum that the US State Department presentedto President Truman before the start of the Potsdam conference (July 1945) inorder to inform him about the British tradition of the “policy of balance”.3)

Lord Vansittart, for many years the highest civil servant in the Foreign Officeand later Chief Diplomatic Advisor to the government, also confirms:

“If such a domination [of a continental power] were established we shouldbe confronted with a position which we have for centuries endeavoured toprevent with the instinctive knowledge that any lasting hegemony in Europemust of necessity reduce this country [Britain] to a second-class power.” *)

Churchill’s statement demonstrates to the world that also in the SecondWorld War ethical principles such as “protection of the small nations”,“international justice”, the “struggle for freedom and democracy”, “safeguardsagainst tyrants” were nothing but propaganda slogans for Britain. It is grotesquefor a country such as Britain that in 1939 still had at her disposal 40 millionsquare kilometres, was ruling over a large number of foreign nations and,moreover, was claiming the ocean for herself, that she should pose as “defenderof the rights of small nations” and of the “free world”. It is no less grotesquethat these British politicians should accuse a nation that had only 600,000square kilometres to call her own, that is to say 1.5 per cent of that of theBritish landholding, of “striving for world domination” – and, furthermore,that they were believed!

Even on the occasion, when Churchill becomes still more explicit and calls

1) W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. I, book I, “The Gathering Storm”, pp.162-163.2) A. Rein, Warum führt England Krieg? pp. 35-36, and A. Buckreis, Politik des 20. Jahrhunderts,

p. 163.3) Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference),

vol. I, p. 258.*) I. Colvin, Vansittart in Office, p. 209.


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the Second World War a “British war” (with this line of reasoning, as used on theBBC, London, he refused the peace negotiation proposals from the Belgian Kingand from the Queen of the Netherlands made after the campaign of Poland in1939) and declares as its aim the “annihilation of Germany” 4), the public world-wide chooses to disregard this without any comment to be heard, as indeed later,after the war, his cynical admission that one had, unfortunately, “killed the wrongpig”, was also passed over in silence. Thus, “world opinion” seems hardly a suitableyardstick for international law.

Even a diplomat from Churchill’s own Conservative Party admitted:

“To the world at large, Churchill appeared to be the very embodiment of apolicy of war. To have brought him into the Government when the balancebetween peace and war was still quivering, might have definitively tilted thescales on the side of war.” 5)

A pretext for justifying their antagonistic attitude has always been found inBritish politics. The Versailles diktat had put a noose around the neck of the WeimarRepublic and had plunged the German nation into strife and economic chaos,although they had willingly made the democratic form of government their own.The liberal constitution did not offer even the smallest hint of clemency andconsideration. But when this gave way to dictatorship, that change served as thepretext for a new war. In the words of the Englishman, William H. Dawson:

“The fact that there was in 1933 a completely different Germany fromwhat her enemies had planned, can be explained in that the Allies had donetheir utmost to weaken and destroy Germany – physically by dismemberingher, financially with the reparations, in her reputation with misrepresentationsand defamation, in her spirit with a heap of insults and humiliations of everyconceivable means…

Therefore, in view of the misery that the Weimar Republic had to sufferfrom 1919 to 1932, researchers arrived at the conclusion that it was a miracleto have survived those years of distress and disgrace.” 6)

When the Germans could see a way out of this chaos, National Socialismsimply had to be made into the “villain”, from this time onward, so that again thetreatment of the Germans as inferior beings and outcasts could be justified. Onceagain British, French and American politicians and newspaper publishers, in

4) K. Hierl, Schuld oder Schicksal? p. 25.5) Viscount Templewood (S. Hoare), Nine Troubled Years, p. 386.6) H. Lutz, Verbrechervolk im Herzen Europas? p. 134.


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conjunction with the Soviets, got worked up over the “eternal trouble-maker”.They put the responsibility for the looming war unto the German government“should they continue rearming”, even at a time when Germany, in contrast to herneighbours, was totally defenceless.7) They were the ones who, with an enormousoutpouring of propaganda, got to work on classifying the nations into good onesand bad ones, into peace-loving and aggressive systems of government and, bymeans of alleged secret information, were feigning an “imminent danger” thatwas threatening different countries.

The British Foreign Secretary Eden was already quite blunt during a talk withthe Polish Marshal Pilsudski in the year 1935 by asking him:

“Do you think, Monsieur le Maréchal, we should remain on our littleisland?” 8)

Similarly the highest civil servant in the Foreign Office, Vansittart, in the year1933:

“If Hitler fails, his successor will be Bolshevism [power-politicaldepreciation of the German area]; if he succeeds, he will have a European Warin five years.”9)

At the same time, that is to say in the year 1933, this same Vansittart hadalready drawn up a memorandum that had but one purpose: Germaniam essedelendam (Germany must be destroyed).10)

This man had for years held the highest civil servant position in the ForeignOffice, and also in the Chamberlain government he continued exercising hisinfluence, in spite of the fact that Chamberlain removed him from his post in 1938and tried to put him on ice with the appointment of Chief Diplomatic Advisor ofthe British government. While the German unity was objectionable11) to thesepeople anyway, so the power that was becoming more and more noticeable in theregeneration of Germany, eventually had to serve once again as the pretext forinterfering on the grounds that it was disturbing the “balance of power”. This,despite the fact the Reich at this time – in contrast to the period before the FirstWorld War – had not participated in the armament race12), and Germany’s foreign

7) A. von Ribbentrop, Verschwörung gegen den Frieden, p. 241. 8) J. Szembek, Journal 1933-1939, p. 54. 9) R. Vansittart, Even Now, p. 69.10) A. von Ribbentrop, op. cit., p. 134; Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. V,

doc. 127: Vansittart endorses here a report that demands the forming of a coalition for destroyingthe “mad dog” (Germany).

11) See statements pp. 345-346.12) See separate chapter.


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trade was not about to create havoc on the world market. Yet Germany had becometoo powerful for their liking, although they had managed to create an armamentslead of several years and to put a cordon of alliances, formed by the victoriousnations, around the vanquished one. The British Defence Committee – and this ischaracteristic – had already decided as early as the spring of 1934, at a time whenit was a verifiable fact that Germany did not have the military might on a par withGreat Britain and was not making any territorial demands, that the “ultimatepotential enemy” in a general war would be Germany.13) Countless prominentpersonalities in Britain, France and the United States explained their anti-Germanattitude with the mere fact of a Germany having become too powerful.

Foreign Secretary Eden declared in 1943, at a farewell breakfast for SovietAmbassador Maisky, who was leaving London to take up the post as DeputyCommissioner for Foreign Affairs in Moscow:

“During the last century and a half England and Russia have always beenin the same camp when any serious crisis arose in Europe. That is what happenedin the time of Napoleon, it was the same in the years of the First World Warand it has happened now in the days of the Second World War. What is theexplanation? It is that Britain and Russia are two great and powerful States atopposite ends of Europe who cannot reconcile themselves to the creation inEurope of the unquestioned domination of any third power. Such an excessivelypowerful third State becomes a menace both to Britain and to Russia – and asa result they unite against it and ultimately bring about its downfall.” 14)

Even when among his friends, Mr. Eden was not in the habit of dwelling on theparticularly abysmal depravity of National Socialism in comparison with otherforms of government and different epochs in Europe. He too held the view of hisPrime Minister that there was “no difference between Philip II of Spain, Napoleon,Kaiser Wilhelm II and Hitler”. What alone was crucial was the “Balance of Powerin Europe”!

Winston Churchill, who “after a brilliant political career had been exchanginga long list of ministerial seats up to the highest that the British governmentalhierarchy has to allocate, that of Chancellor of the Exchequer (1924-1929)”, toldthe Soviet Ambassador in London, Maisky, at the end of July 1934:

“‘The British Empire’, said Churchill, ‘is my be-all and end-all. What isgood for the British Empire is good for me too; what is bad for the British

13) I. Colvin, op. cit., pp. 35, 124-125.14) I.M. Maisky, Who helped Hitler? p. 48.15) ibid., p. 55.


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Empire is bad for me… In 1919 I considered that the greatest danger to the British Empire was

your country, and therefore I was an enemy of your country. Now I considerthat the greatest danger for the British Empire is Germany, and therefore nowI am an enemy of Germany. At the same time I consider that Hitler is makingready to expand not only against us but also to the east, against you. Whyshould we not join forces to combat our common enemy? I have been anadversary of Communism, and remain its adversary, but for the sake of theintegrity of the British Empire I am ready to co-operate with the Soviets.’” 15)

This distrust of Germany did not only apply to German might as a politicalfactor, but equally to her economic potential and to her intellectual prowess. Alreadyin the year 1919 “The Times” had written:

“If Germany were to start trading within the next 50 years, then we wouldhave fought this war [First World War] for nothing.” 16)

The British historian and General, J.F.C. Fuller, said in retrospect that it wasnot Hitler’s political teachings that provoked the war; the cause, this time, was hissuccessful endeavour to construct a changed economy.17)

“It is in the envies, greeds and fears of men that the roots of war are to befound.” 17)

The British diplomat Lord Lothian, future Ambassador to the USA, had writtento a friend on 23 July 1936:

“My whole point is that you cannot deal with Nazi Germany until yougive her justice. Once you have given her justice two things may happen. Onthe one hand the moderate forces in Germany may begin to resist [probably,because they never managed to reach a decision whether to oppose the WeimarRepublic]. On the other hand, Great Britain may be willing to consider makingwar if Germany proceeds to action which may lead to the hegemony ofEurope.” 18)

Winston Churchill in the year 1936:

16) H.H. Löwenstein, Deutsche Geschichte, p. 474, and stenographic reports of the constitutionalNational Assembly (“Nationalversammlung”), 1919, p. 1083.

17) J.F.C. Fuller, Decisive Battles of the Western World, vol. III, pp. 368-370; The Second WorldWar 1939-1945: A Strategical and Tactical History, p. 412.

18) J.R.M. Butler, Lord Lothian, p. 216.19) Das Neue Reich, No. 15, 11 April 1959, p. 4, H. Grimm.


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“ We will force Hitler into the war, whether he wants it or not.” 19)

Then on 18 January 1945 and again in Fulton after the war, in March 1946, inthe presence of President Truman:

“It was [the Second World War] also about the acquisition of the Germanmarkets.” 20)

From a conversation of Churchill with the High Commissioner of the Leagueof Nations in Danzig, Carl J. Burckhardt, at the beginning of 1937:

“Churchill was telling me that Germany was again getting too strong, theGermans were only impressed by power; in the event of an armed conflict, theexcessive encroachments of National Socialism would help the British to astrong system of alliances.” 21)

The simple fact that a great and competent people had found themselves againwas to be used as an exaggerated propaganda slogan of “excessive encroachments”(at the beginning of 1937!) by utilizing the rumours that the selfsame Londoncentral office was circulating throughout the world. The aim was obvious: theforming of an alliance system for smashing Germany to pieces.

American General Robert E. Wood stated at a Senate committee that Churchillhad said to him in November 1936:

“Germany is getting too strong, and we must smash her.” 22)

This is not the only evidence. Churchill gave his opinion quite openly in aconversation with the former German Ambassador in London, von Ribbentrop, inthe summer of 1937:

Churchill:

“If Germany gets too strong, she will be crushed again [as in 1914].”

Ribbentrop:

“This will not be quite so easy this time, as Germany has friends.”

20) Der Ring, April 1959, p. 4.21) C.J. Burckhardt, Meine Danziger Mission 1937-1939, p. 70.22) J.F.C. Fuller, Decisive Battles of the Western World, vol. III, p. 369; E. Hughes, op. cit., p. 145;

“Hearings on Lend and Lease”, February 1941, p. 275.23) J. von Ribbentrop, Zwischen London und Moskau, p. 97.


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Churchill:

“Oh, we are pretty good at getting them round at the end.” 23)

“You must not underrate England... Do not judge by the attitude of thepresent administration. Once a great cause is presented to the people, all kindsof unexpected actions might be taken by this very government and by theBritish nation.” 24)

The IMT in Nuremberg, like the British governments of the post-war period,have declared the documentary papers of this conversation as nowhere to be found.However, there is much that speaks in favour of the statement’s authenticity:

a) the supposed non-existence of the documentary papers of this conversationin either the British or in the captured German archives;

b) the absence of any documents to the contrary relating to this conversationwhich, after all, did take place;

c) the refusal of the IMT Nuremberg to examine Churchill as a witness;d) Churchill’s acknowledgement in his memoirs.Therefore, the unsuccessful application in Nuremberg by the defence counsel

of Reich Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop, bearing in mind the situation of theReich government at that time, has a legitimate significance in the light ofRealpolitik:

“On the basis of this statement of Churchill which has been mentioned,and those of other important British statesmen, according to which Englandwould bring about a coalition against Germany within a few years in order tooppose Hitler with all available means – as a result of these statements, Hitlerbecame henceforth more keenly anxious to increase his own armaments and tobusy himself with strategic plans.” 25)

Duff Cooper, First Lord of the Admiralty, opened the Commons debate on theoutcome of the Munich conference on 3 October 1938:

“He insisted that she [Great Britain] would have been fighting for the balanceof power, which was precious to some British hearts. He believed that it washis mission and that of his country to prevent Germany from achieving adominant position on the continent.” 26)

24) W. Churchill, op. cit., vol. I, book I, “The Gathering Storm”, p. 175.25) IMT, vol. VIII, pp. 229, 230.26) D. Hoggan, The Forced War, p. 181.


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The British historian A.J.P. Taylor confirms:

“The most outspoken opponents of Munich, such as Winston Churchill,asserted quite simply that Germany was becoming too powerful in Europe andthat she must be stopped by the threat of a great coalition or, if necessary, byforce of arms... Duff Cooper, First Lord of the Admiralty,… when he resignedin protest against the Munich settlement ... was concerned with the Balance ofPower and British honour, not with self-determination or the injustices ofVersailles.” 27)

The fundamental attitude of these factions had already been definitely decidedin this direction months, if not years, before the Munich conference. The PolishUnder Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Warsaw, CountSzembek, had noted in his diary on 7 July 1938:

“[Vansittart] is the main force behind the encirclement policy againstGermany which is guided and promoted by certain elements of the Britishgovernment...

They would also like us to be a part of the encirclement policy of Germanyand, therefore, encourage the pressure put upon us in this regard by all theBritish factions of the left, which … are combining now into a party of war,and who are even endorsing the idea of a preventive war...” 28)

The British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, had revealed these interrelationsin his memoirs already with reference to February 1938, and he spoke of“pressures” being exerted on him:

“Almost every day I would receive unsolicited advice to take some action,of which the plain consequence, if the bluff did not succeed, was to make itrather more likely that the issue must be war.” 29)

The Polish Ambassador in London, Raczynski, reported in his memoirs on alunch with Churchill on 28 September 1938, the eve of the Munich conference:

“... and we afterwards drove together to the House of Commons. Churchilldeclared that the only hope lay in resolution and if necessary in war, andthreatened that if Chamberlain once again decided on an inglorious retreat, he,Churchill, would ‘show him’.” 30)

27) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 190.28) J. Szembek, op. cit., pp. 322-323.29) Halifax, Fulness of Days, p. 196.30) E. Raczynski, In Allied London, p. 8.


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The following day, Halifax was meeting his Prime Minister returning fromMunich at London Airport. While accompanying him back to the City, Halifaxrecommended that he should take this man – Churchill – back into the Cabinet,along with some particularly belligerent officials from the Labour Party, as wellas Eden, the former Foreign Secretary, who had resigned in February 1938 becauseof the course of appeasement.31) The manner in which Churchill intended to solvethe “German problem” was well known in London. If this man could state to thepress adviser at the German embassy, Fritz Hesse,

“If a mad dog is about to attack me, I shall shoot it down before it can biteme,” 32)

– he would have expressed himself in an even blunter way to his colleagues.One of these, Lord Vansittart, did not consider it any the less moral to be saying:

“But my dear Hesse, you will not be able to prevent a war between Germanyand Britain. You see, Mr. Hitler wants to make Germany the supreme power inEurope, and I believe that my information about this is correct. You understandthat we cannot allow this to happen.” 32)

Indeed, in England

“historical hatreds were common...; dislike of Germany sprang ... fromthe attitudes rooted in the past and incapable of moderation.” 33)

Winston Churchill never did agree with German “equality of armaments”34)

and – as he was to admit, at least later, in all openness – had been recommendingto permanently “prevent the re-armament of Germany” 35). When he was travellingall over in 1936, trying to get all the countries of the League of Nations into“ganging up” against Germany36), these travels were, at that time, not as successfulas he would have wished. Although of similar mind, most of the Versaillespoliticians, moreover, did not want to grant Germany after 1933 the principles ofequal rights and the right to self-determination, just as it had also been refusedwhen it was the Weimar Republic. It had to be made clear to the German nation

31) Halifax, op. cit., p. 200.32) F. Hesse, Das Spiel um Deutschland, p. 38 seq.33) M. Gilbert, R. Gott, The Appeasers, pp. 23, 24.34) W. Churchill, op. cit., vol. I, book I, “The Gathering Storm”, p. 50.35) R.S. Churchill, The Sinews of Peace – Post-War Speeches by Winston Churchill, p. 41: speech

in Brussels on 16 November 1945.36) ibid., p. 167, speech in the House of Commons on 5 June 1946.


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that the fighting of the Allies – ostensibly against the German Monarchy – wasdirected against the German Nation as such, despite initial assurances to thecontrary. The victors of Versailles wanted to uphold by force – irrespective of thehistorical research findings to the contrary – the theory of it being exclusively aGerman war guilt, in order to support their systems of reorganization from 1919.Winston Churchill was announcing still in 1933 that Germany alone had beenresponsible for the war and that the Versailles Treaty was just.37) He never renouncedthis fundamental basis of his agitation throughout his life; rather he went beyondhis thesis in hysterical fashion as the later War Premier, in that he spoke in February1944 of a “Thirty-Years’ War fighting German aggression starting in 1914”.38)

Churchill waged war – with weaponry or with words – on the German Empire, theWeimar Republic and the Third Reich. But at the same time he was speaking ofpeace, justice and equality amongst the nations and of an unselfish and peace-loving Britain that would protect the small nations.

Important party followers of the Churchillian “European politics” had positionsin the Foreign Office, the Civil Service and were at the helm in the media. Theytoo belonged to that “minority” in Britain who, from 1935,

“were determined to crush Germany by means of another war, andconsidered it not only morally justified but also the only correct policy! I wasespecially astonished at the time that even some Americans – whose names Ihave forgotten, but among them was also the Ambassador – supported thisview fervently.” 39)

So it is hardly surprising to find that Lord Halifax was already early on workingalong lines exactly in accordance with this “Politics of the Balance of Power”.Already in August/September 1938 he was interfering in the German-Polishrelations with his promise to Foreign Minister Beck that Great Britain wouldsupport Poland at Danzig “as much as possible” 40) – at a time, then, when Hitlerhad not as yet taken into consideration talks with Poland about that matter. Halifaxmade that pledge to the Poles, although he himself liked to describe the Danzigsolution, produced at Versailles, as “an absurdity” 40), and despite the fact of beinginformed by his Ambassador in Warsaw to the effect that

“It is fairly clear that it is only a question of time before Danzig becomeswholly German and that M. Beck would have great difficulty in inducing the

37) H. Lutz, op. cit., p. 21.38) “Correspondence between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill during the War 1941-1945” (Russian),

vol. I, doc. 243, p. 203.39) F. Hesse, op. cit., p. 40.40) D. Hoggan, op. cit., p. 111.


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Polish people to swallow this without some quid pro quo.” 41)

That the actions of Lord Halifax were orientated towards the long-term, withthe ultimate aim of breaking the German power, is still more drastically shown inthat he, at a very early stage, had been encouraging Hitler to make demands,which he would then promptly attack most vehemently with all the means ofpropaganda and diplomacy, when it seemed that Hitler was acting according tothe Halifaxian suggestions.

His predecessor at the Foreign Office, Anthony Eden, had already preparedthe ground: On 4 May 1937, the British diplomat, Lord Lothian, visited the GermanChancellor for the second time and told him about an official statement that theForeign Secretary had made during a speech in Leamington (Central England) on20 November 1936, declaring that Britain “had no primary interests in EasternEurope”. Neither did Britain, so Lothian was affirming, stand in the way of an“Austrian solution”, more likely this would be Mussolini and the Pope.42)

As another envoy from Britain, Lord Halifax arrived to see Hitler on 19November 1937. He stated the following:

“The view was held in England that it was perfectly possible to clear out ofthe way the misunderstandings which existed at the present moment: the greatservices which the Chancellor had performed in the reconstruction of Germanywere fully recognized, and, if the public opinion of England took up an attitudeof criticism from time to time towards certain German problems, it might nodoubt be in part because people in England were not fully informed of themotives and attendant circumstances of certain measures taken in Germany.Thus the Church of England followed with anxiety and disquiet the developmentof the Church question in Germany; and Labour Party circles were critical ofcertain action taken in Germany. In spite of these difficulties he, Lord Halifax,recognized that the Chancellor had not only performed great services inGermany but also, as he would no doubt feel, had been able, by preventing theentry of Communism into his country, to bar its passage further West…

He [Halifax] said that every one in England respected Germany as a greatand sovereign country and that it was only upon this basis that she would betreated. Englishmen were realists and were perhaps more convinced than othersthat mistakes had been made in the Treaty of Versailles which had to be putright…

On the English side it was not necessarily thought that the status quo must

41) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. III, doc. 206: Kennard to Halifax on 14October 1938.

42) J.R.M. Butler, op. cit., pp. 341-342.


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be maintained under all circumstances. It was recognized that one might haveto contemplate an adjustment to new conditions, a correction of former mistakesand the recognition of changed circumstances when such need arose…

He must emphasize once more in the name of H.M. Government thatpossibility of change of the existing situation was not excluded, but that changesshould only take place upon the basis of reasonable agreements reasonablyreached…” 43)

A Czech historian put these matters into the following words:

“The German documents reveal that Hitler derived special encouragementfrom Lord Halifax’s visit in November 1937. Lord Halifax was then LordPresident of the Council, ranking second in the Cabinet to the Prime Minister.According to the document recording the interview, he gave Hitler to understandthat Britain would allow him a free hand in Eastern Europe. Halifax may nothave meant as much, but that was the impression he conveyed – and it provedof crucial importance. Then, in February 1938, Mr. Eden was driven to resignas Foreign Minister after repeated disagreements with Chamberlain, and Halifaxwas appointed to succeed him at the Foreign Office. A few days later, theBritish Ambassador in Berlin, Sir Nevile Henderson, called on Hitler for aconfidential talk – in continuation of Halifax’s November conversation – andconveyed to him that the British government was much in sympathy with hisdesire for ‘changes in Europe’ to Germany’s benefit. As the documents show,these events precipitated Hitler’s action.” 44)

An Englishman:

“At the Munich conference Chamberlain was fully aware that his ForeignSecretary, Halifax, and Duff Cooper, First Lord of the Admiralty and Memberof Parliament, had encouraged the Poles in the summer of 1938 to adopt inDanzig a confrontational attitude towards Germany, in spite of the fact thatHalifax had convinced the German leadership during his visit to Germany in1937 that Great Britain considered the return of Danzig to the Reich as rightand proper. The British Prime Minister knew perfectly that this deceitful policy,practised by his own ministers, would very quickly lead Europe into anotherwar, but he lacked the courage to discuss this situation with Hitler.” 45)

During the period following the Anschluss of Austria, Hitler was againencouraged by Great Britain. This time he was “to make demands” on Czecho-

43) ADAP, vol. I, doc. 31.44) F.O. Miksche, Unconditional Surrender, p. 229. Compare ADAP, vol. I, doc. 31, pp. 56-66.45) P.H. Nicoll, Britain’s Blunder (German edition), p. 57.


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Slovakia, which “took him by surprise”.46) The same course of events was repeatedduring the Sudeten crisis, which was not even of Hitler’s making. From then onHitler was portrayed by the Anglo-American world press as the “culprit”, the“aggressor” and “imperialist”, and a coalition of powers was subsequently formedagainst him.

It was in this fashion that the “Policy of the Balance of Power” was pursued;an approach against which Henderson was to caution his Foreign Minister on 18July 1939 most urgently, albeit without success.47)

Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister at the time, had originallywanted peace, even if it was only for the reason of gaining more time to facilitatea more extensive rearmament programme. But the peace and friendship declarationon 30 September 1938 in Munich was his last independent foreign policy act. Anysubsequent important decisions, whilst they all bear his signature, were takenagainst his will, prompted by the urgings of the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax,some highly-placed senior officials at the Foreign Office, a considerable numberof Members of Parliament from the Conservative Party, but, above all, also fromthe Labour Party, from the influential shapers of public opinion – and PresidentRoosevelt. After the Munich conference, there gained acceptance in Britain thedemand “to restore the European equilibrium, unbalanced by Munich”.48) That thestarting point of meddling in foreign affairs on the basis of a “complete about-turnto a readiness for war” was not solely to be found in London became evident, afterChamberlain had made his outrageous claim that “America and the world Jewshad forced England into the war.” 49)

Anybody who is familiar with this earlier history cannot fail but reach theconclusion that the British decision in the spring of 1939 to refuse the people ofDanzig – to say nothing of West Prussia – the right to self-determination and thendo everything that was bound to aggravate German-Polish tensions, was neitherbased on ethical principles nor on a preference for the status quo. Great Britaintolerated, yes, even supported, unreservedly in 1939 the activities of Polishchauvinism, designed to change the status quo, the Great Power aspirations at theexpense of Germany, but also the Soviet expansion at the expense of Poland andthe Baltic States. Naturally, no legal maxims were required when it came to the“westwardly moving of the Polish frontier”. One did not even try to keep up thepretence that all this was done for the sake of the dear Poles. Winston Churchill atthe Yalta conference in February 1945:

46) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 161.47) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VI, doc. 347.48) W. Churchill, His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, vol. VI, p. 6081: Speech in London on 14

March 1939, also Into Battle.49) W. Millis, The Forrestal Diaries, p. 122.


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“As for the river Neisse ... in previous talks I had always qualified themoving of the Polish frontier westwards by saying that the Poles should befree to take territory in the west, but not more than they wished or could properlymanage. It would be a great pity to stuff the Polish goose so full of Germanfood that it died of indigestion.” 50)

The words “I” and “always” and “German food” and “Polish goose” demandto be heavily underlined.

We need to examine British secret diplomacy during the year1939 in the lightof this later admission. Although at that time Churchill was not in the BritishCabinet, he was, nevertheless, one of those influential men, who were able topush Chamberlain into the direction they wanted. “The nearer we get to war, themore his chances improve”.*) Foreign Secretary Eden, in office again from 1940onwards, having already been active against Germany before the war when ForeignSecretary or when “a private individual”, stated on 16 December 1944 in theHouse of Commons:

“I have for many years held the opinion, as a private individual, that itwould not be possible for the Polish State to maintain an independent nationalviability if the system of the Corridor is retained…

As a correspondent in Geneva I had to sit in on this wretched Danzig affair.In truth, it was never going to work…

There was only one possibility to solve this problem, which was to giveEast Prussia to Poland and move the population from there to settle in anotherplace...” 51)

Here, too, we need to underline some words: “for many years”, and we shalllikewise arrive back in pre-war times and find an astonishing accord with theideas and actions of his powerful friends and of his successor and predecessor,Lord Halifax. In 1939 Anthony Eden had long ceased to be a private person, butwas instead one of the most influential men in British society and politics, havingbeen His Majesty’s Foreign Secretary from December 1935 until February 1938.

Just how little these British statesmen were concerned about the fate of Polandis also evident from the many comments and, especially, from the actions beforeSeptember 1939 and during the war. Winston Churchill in Yalta in 1945:

50) Die Jalta-Dokumente, pp. 166, 171; W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. VI, book II,“The Iron Curtain”, p. 327.

*) K. Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, p. 406.51) R. Goguel, Polen, Deutschland und die Oder-Neisse-Grenze, p. 316.


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“As for myself, I do not take much interest in the Poles.” 52)

This lack of interest in Poland could also be deduced not only from his attitudetowards the Polish Government in Exile, but also from his efforts to suppress thetruth about the massacre of over 10,000 Polish officers in the forest of Katyn.53)

Furthermore, Churchill did not mention Poland, his ally, in his “calculation ofpercentages” at the Moscow conference in October 1944, when he pushed acrossthe table to Stalin a sheet of paper on which he had written his requested sphere ofinfluence quota, expressed in percentages, for the Eastern European countries.54)

President F.D. Roosevelt was acquainted with the perfidious Poland policyfrom London and was condoning it, as his remark to Foreign Secretary Eden (March1943) reveals:

“The big powers would have to decide what Poland should have.” 55)

So the Great Powers in question “did decide”, while debarring all continentalEuropean States, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly already during theyears before the war, on the foreign policy framework of their own allies and theirVersailles fellow travellers, which included Poland. By using their propagandaand their economic capabilities they would establish their value judgmentsaccording to their interests: the good, peace-loving democracies and the bad,barbaric Germans. In this connection one has to agree with the Communisthistorians:

“Poland had become irredeemably dependent on the imperialistic WesternPowers, who imposed on the Polish government a policy that was not in theinterest of the Polish people and which, in the end, destroyed the Polish Statein 1939.” 56)

Poland was chosen to serve the selfish aims of Great Britain according to the“Balance of the Powers”. Misjudging London’s true motives, Warsaw assumedthis role with passionate zeal – and shattered.57)

52) Die Jalta-Dokumente, p.266.53) J.K. Zawodny, Death in the Forest, New York, 1962, and “Correspondence between Stalin,

Roosevelt and Churchill during the War 1941-1945” (Russian), vol. I, doc. 151, pp. 121-122:letter from Churchill to Stalin on 24 April 1943.

54) W. Churchill, op. cit., vol. VI, book I, “The Tide of Victory”, p. 198.55) R. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 710.56) R. Goguel, op. cit., p. 863.57) E. Rozek, Allied Wartime Diplomacy, p. 26.


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Britain’s Policy on Germany from “Munich”to 15 March 1939

British politics after the Munich conference was determined to devalue thedeclaration of peace and friendship signed by Chamberlain and Hitler on 30September 1938 and – to say the very least – to form anew those alliance agreementsof France (and thus of Britain) in Eastern Europe that had been created by theVersailles settlement, though having become rather uncertain since then. The means,as used by London for this, were extremely questionable. The domestic and foreignpolicies, the mass media and the economy were now geared to a warlikedevelopment instead of being orientated towards peace and friendship. “The Cityis itching for war” – that is how a French historian in the year 1958 defined thesituation at that time in London.1) Churchill admitted that from October 1938onwards he had been determined “to come to blows with Hitler”, and he was mostdefinitely not only speaking for himself.2)

“The British pro-war group was drawn from every party in the land, withthe strongest willingness for war being expressed by the members of the Liberaland the Labour Party…

On the day that Chamberlain arrived back in London from Munich, theconfirmed German-hater Alfred Duff Cooper, First Lord of the Admiralty, senta message to Chamberlain, in which he criticized Chamberlain’s foreign policyand announced his resignation from the Cabinet.” 3)

The parliamentary debates from the 3 to the 5 October 1938 on the Munichconference, in their lengthy and extensive polemics, highlighted the followingdevelopments:

a) The Cabinet that in mid-September had decided that the Sudetenland bereturned to Germany, no longer stood by its decision unequivocally;

b) these debates confirmed the press in their conviction that it was open seasonon Germany;

c) Chamberlain did not confront the agitators, who were unrestrained in theirattacks on the Munich agreement and – as, for example, Churchill – would describethe Chancellor of the Reich as “highwayman” and “gangster” and the Munichagreement as “German extortion”. But, little by little, he went along the same line,

1) H. Lebre in Les Origines Secrètes de la Guerre 1939-1945, p. 46 (German ed., p. 41).2) O. Abetz, Das offene Problem, p. 103; E. Raczynski, In Allied London, p. 8.3) P.H. Nicoll, Britain’s Blunder (German edition), pp. 121-122.


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and he strengthened the position of his Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, who hadalso suddenly threatened with his resignation with reference to the Munichsettlement, in a way so that gradually sole responsibility for British foreign policywas passed to Halifax.4)

d) Chamberlain announced – under the pretext of the “German danger” – thehitherto biggest rearmament programme;

e) the policy of the “inevitability of war” was launched energetically by meansof every media outlet widely spreading fictitious alarming reports, by coalitionarrangements with other powers, by encouraging an uncompromising stancetowards Germany, by repeating inflammatory slogans (Germany = “aggressornation”) and by the deliberate withholding from the general public the Germanendeavours for peace;

f) the pressure on France to set the French defences in order became stronger,whereby “pressure” is to be understood to mean, at the very least, the unremittingzeal of the British government in suggesting to the French ally the need for agreatly increased rearmament;5)

g) the preparation for a national auxiliary service and the public promotion ofthe preliminary groundwork, making ready for the introduction of universalconscription, was vastly speeded up.

“Chamberlain’s policy was also attacked by leading Conservatives inParliament, such as Eden and Churchill, with phrases which clearly revealedthat they also would have preferred war to the Munich Declaration. But it wasthe leaders of the Labour Party that formed the most united pro-war group…

Chamberlain received a vote of confidence, albeit with a relatively smallmajority. The Liberal and Labour members all voted against Chamberlain,and at least half of the more prominent Conservatives pointedly refrained fromvoting for Chamberlain and his policy.” 6)

Further steps along this readjusted British policy were the speech of LordHalifax in Edinburgh on 23 October 1938, in which he emphasized that an

“armed peace in Europe could not be seen as a permanent peace on thebasis of mutual understanding,” 7)

4) ibid., p. 126.5) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. III, doc. 122 (4 October 1938), doc. 282

(28 October), doc. 285 (1 November), doc. 288 (3 November), doc. 325: protocol of the talksbetween Chamberlain and Daladier in Paris on 24 November and of conversations in Paris on 2-3 December about aircraft production, inter alia; G. Bonnet, in De Munich à la Guerre, pp. 55-56(German ed., pp. 146-148), describes his own efforts for rearmament.

6) P.H. Nicoll, op. cit., p. 123.7) ibid., p. 125.


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the incorporation of the Canadian industries into the British programme forrearmament in the air from November 1938 onwards and the visit to Paris byChamberlain and Halifax on 24 November 1938 to discuss armament and militarymeasures. The statement from Halifax to his Ambassador in Paris of 1 November1938 remained obviously without any effect:

“Henceforward we must count with German predominance in CentralEurope. Incidentally I have always felt myself that, once Germany recoveredher normal strength, this predominance was inevitable for obvious geographicaland economic reasons…

It is one thing to allow German expansion in Central Europe, which to mymind is a normal and natural thing...” 8)

On 17 November 1938, Winston Churchill made a long speech recommendingthe setting up of a Ministry of Supply.9)

On 30 November 1938, the Secretary of the Department of Overseas Trade,R.S. Hudson, was emphasizing in the House of Commons, for no apparent reason,the threat of commercial competition from Germany and the supposed need foreconomic and political countermeasures.

“During these feverish weeks of November 1938 the leading circles inLondon brought about that change of direction in Britain which was to lead towar, deciding to wage war on an enemy who was threatening the lifeblood ofBritish trade. The policy of uncompromising firmness which, in the light ofthe international situation, could have no other solution than war, wasdetermined then. It only awaited the opportunity to come out into the open;Poland was to provide the government in London with that opportunity.” 10)

On 4 December 1938, the British Minister of Education stated that in Britainthe opinion was growing that a conclusive agreement with Germany could nolonger be reached.7)

“The furor(e) about the Munich agreement might have subsided in thefollowing months had not the Conservative leaders contrived by various meansto keep the public in a state of alarm about Germany. … Earl De la Warr,Education Minister in the Chamberlain Cabinet, insisted in a speech at Bradfordon December 4, 1938, that the feeling was prevalent in Great Britain that nothingcould ever be done to satisfy Germany. This was a propaganda trick designedto create the very opinion which he claimed existed.” 11)

8) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. III, doc. 285. 9) W. Churchill, His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, vol. VI, p. 6019 seq., also Into Battle.10) H. Lebre in Les Origines Secrètes de la Guerre 1939-1945, p. 48 (German ed., pp. 41-42).11) D. Hoggan, The Forced War, pp. 194-195.


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On 7 December 1938, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, M.McDonald, gave a brusque rebuff to Germany in his speech on the question ofcolonies, without this having been raised by Berlin.

On 16 December 1938, the Polish Ambassador in London, Raczynski, reportedto his Minister for Foreign Affairs on the “phraseology with which public opinionis regularly fed here”:

“The situation after Munich is described here as one which is neither peacenor war. Prime Minister Chamberlain’s statement that a new era has begunwhich will ensure ‘peace in our time’ is seen by all as an illusion which willquickly vanish when confronted with reality.” 12)

On 11 January 1939, Chamberlain and Halifax with an advisory staff of sixcivil servants flew to Rome, in order to intimidate Italy and to make known thediscord between Germany and Poland, but also with the USSR (“Hitler apparentlywas planning to establish an independent Ukraine”), although London had at thattime received no such indication from either Berlin or Warsaw. A clarification ofGerman foreign policy, a disarmament conference, a common ground againstBolshevism, an effective peace initiative and a relaxing of positions – these werenot causes that these politicians were supporting.13)

On 23 January 1939, Chamberlain gave a speech in the House of Commonswith this result:

a) The introduction of Voluntary National Service which was intended to makeBritain “ready for war” 14);

b) the public announcement of the British government that in the event of vitalinterests of unnamed European countries being threatened, Britain would militarilyintervene on the Continent.

With that, the policy which had intended military intervention only in the caseof an attack on the British Isles, was given a public annulment.

With this step and the previous one Chamberlain had made not only PresidentRoosevelt’s standpoint his own, which the President had announced on 4 January1939 in an address to Congress as choosing “methods short of war” 15), but alsocarried out these methods.

During the months of December 1938 and January 1939, Lord Halifax andother British public figures reinforced President Roosevelt’s stance with a numberof false alarmist reports and a flood of corresponding articles in the press: Hitler

12) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, vol. I, p. 356.13) I. Colvin, Vansittart in Office, pp. 287-288.14) P.H. Nicoll, op. cit., p. 129.15) K. Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, p. 392.


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16) H. Roos, Polen und Europa, p. 378. Propagandist Sefton Delmer would write suchlike reports:See S. Delmer, Black Boomerang, New York 1962; here quoted German edition (Die Deutschenund ich), p. 390.

17) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 355-356; D. Hoggan, op. cit., pp. 240-241.18) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. III, doc. 285.19) C.J. Burckhardt, Meine Danziger Mission 1937-1939, p. 326.20) A. von Ribbentrop, Verschwörung gegen den Frieden, p. 296.

was planning to establish an independent Ukraine (“this information came fromWestern Europe” 16)); he intended to destroy the Western Powers in a surpriseattack, before turning to the East; he might seek to push Italy into war in theMediterranean to find an excuse to fight; he was amassing German troops near theCzecho-Slovak border; Germany was facing an economic and financial crisis,which forced Hitler to use aggressive measures; “Hitler’s mental condition, hisinsensate rage against Great Britain and his megalomania” are seen as a directhazard.17) London, in the meantime, also felt encouraged by the much increased,since autumn 1938, contact-seeking endeavours of the secret German Opposition,who were nurturing hopes that a British show of strength or, rather, a “preventativewar”, would trigger off a military putsch in the German Reich.

Another British initiative to be mentioned is the puzzling diplomatic gamedirected against Germany, arising from the “fear, Poland might choose the Germanside” and, thereby, break the ring of encirclement. By discussing British “fears”about an agreement or even an alliance between Poland and Germany, the historianshereby admit themselves, albeit unintentionally, that Germany had not beenthreatening her Eastern neighbour but, on the contrary, was seeking co-operationwith Poland. Lord Halifax admitted to his Ambassador in Paris on 1 November1938:

“… Poland ... can presumably only fall more and more into the Germanorbit.” 18)

So the men privy to the European policy of that period – “alas, a not insignificantpart of the then Western opinion”! – realized that the “fears” of London were that“a settlement of Danzig and the problem of the Corridor might still be achieved”.19)

France, too, was firing a disruptive barrage in order to forestall any possibility ofsuccess of the visit by the Foreign Minister of the Reich, von Ribbentrop, to Warsaw(January 1939).20)

“He [Beck] took care not to tell the British that negotiations with Germanyhad reached deadlock. On the contrary, he implied that the question of Danzigwould soon be settled. Once more, the British took alarm. They feared that


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Poland might draw closer to Germany, as had happened in 1938. Theparticipation of Poland in ‘a peace front’ seemed to them vital. She alonecould make the threat of a second front a reality.

The British did not suppose that Poland herself was in imminent dangerfrom Germany. On the contrary, they feared that she might choose the Germanside, particularly with Memel in the market. The Poles, too, felt in nodanger.” 21)

On 6 February 1939, Chamberlain stated in the House of Commons that GreatBritain, in the event of “the vital interests” of France being threatened, wouldunconditionally back France militarily, and that French Foreign Minister Bonnethad already given an identical assurance to London. This reciprocal promisereferred specifically to the “eventuality of a war” and not to “an attack by Germany”.Already in this alliance – as indeed later in the guarantee to Poland – “the questionof the aggressor was ignored”! Great Britain entered this far-reaching andunconditional commitment despite the fact that France, because of her manyalliance obligations (for example towards Poland, the USSR, Czecho-Slovakia),was likely to be dragged into every conceivable European trouble spot.22)

In mid-February 1939, Britain and France withdrew from some importantobligations of the Geneva General Act pertaining to the neutrality laws and, inparticular, to the maritime laws; they withdrew, thereby, with effect from 16 August1939, from the arbitration procedures regarding neutrals. – This was decidedly awar-measure calculated for a European conflict!

“On 21 February 1939, Chamberlain declared that there was at present noreason for a disarmament conference, as it would fail anyway, and he addedthat all parties in Britain now stood together behind the armament programme.But he acknowledged the lately emerging leanings towards peace in Britain inthat he conceded, a few days later, that there might possibly be a chance tonegotiate about disarmament towards the end of the year. On 10 March Halifaxexpressed his disapproval of this last statement.” 23)

After Neville Chamberlain had already attended a reception at the Sovietembassy on 1 March 1939, the Prime Minister again paid the Soviet Ambassadora visit on 9 March 1939 24) – for a Prime Minister a most unusual attitude! – andwith that was expressing, according to Churchill’s statement,

21) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, pp. 207, 209.22) A. Buckreis, Politik des 20. Jahrhunderts, p. 34.23) P.H. Nicoll, op. cit., p. 128 (in 1999 edit.), quotes: The Times, London, 23 January, 4 and 22

February 1939 and HANSARD’ s Parliamentary Debates: Commons, 31 January 1939.24) A. Buckreis, op. cit., p. 54.


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“…the new interest which Great Britain is taking in the possibilities ofincreased trade and co-operation with Russia.” 25)

In the Documents on British Foreign Policy there is the evidence that, besidesChamberlain, the Secretary of the Overseas Trade Department, Mr. Hudson, hadalso on the same 9 March tried to press a British credit on the Soviet Union in away that Maisky had become very concerned and worried at this and could onlyexplain this move from some hidden, political motives.26) Britain’s effort to enlistthe Soviet Union against Germany is thereby already established at a time, whenthere was not even a pretext available. The occupation of Bohemia and Moraviawas six days later!

Chamberlain wrote in October 1939, looking back over his time in office, hedid not believe

“that it was possible for me to do more than I did to prepare the country forwar after Munich.” 27)

Even if this later vindicatory remark from Chamberlain might have been perhapsexaggerated, it really bears witness to the pressure that was exerted on the PrimeMinister from his own ranks during those months.

All these measures reflect the British drive after the Declaration, signed byHitler, of Peace and Friendship – at a time, when Hitler was indisputably abidingby this declaration. The British government could not rightfully seek to justifyitself by claiming that this course had become necessary within the context ofEuropean peace and of European security, as it signified really an obvious breakwith the principles of peaceable conduct as agreed on with Germany. It had to beobvious to any reasonable person that with the British action the fires of war werebeing fanned. Winston Churchill declared on 10 March 1939 to Bernard Baruch,Roosevelt’s chief advisor, who was not without knowledge of the internal situationwithin the British leadership:

“War is coming very soon. We will be in it and you [the United States] willbe in it.” 28)

The British government was aware that Germany was not looking for a fight

25) E. Hughes, Winston Churchill – British Bulldog – His Career in War and Peace, p. 168.26) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 193 and 194.27) K. Feiling, op. cit., p. 456.28) R. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 113; J.F.C. Fuller, Decisive Battles of the Western

World, vol. III, p. 375.


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with Britain, and that she was also making efforts towards peace and friendshipwith regard to other countries. Hitler’s sole reaction to the British drive for actionwas the entry into Prague on 15 March 1939 which, however – as describedseparately – was due to a whole range of other causes. (Hitler’s speech on 9 October1938 in Saarbrücken, which was “interpreted” as a “provocation” by the WesternPowers, merely highlighted the dangers that were bound to result from the Britishattitude and warned against continuing with that policy. In no way, however, did itrepresent a turning away from the Munich signature.)

The British Reaction to 15 March 1939

The British government, together with the French government, was demandingin a note to Hitler an explanation of his actions in Prague. The British PrimeMinister had not intended using the Proclamation of the Protectorate of Bohemiaand Moravia as an opportunity for a belligerent reply.1) However, as was becomingthe usual practice by now, he again submitted to the pressures exerted on him.

“He [Chamberlain] did not think it necessary to recommend any practicalaction to Parliament…

Chamberlain’s attitude [on 15 March 1939 in the House of Commons]aroused a violent reaction, not only on the part of the Labour and LiberalOpposition Party but even from certain elements in the Conservative Party. Inparticular, Eden sharply criticized the foreign policy of the Government, andgave the warning that the annexation of Czecho-Slovakia would be followedby new acts of aggression on the part of the Fascist dictators. Eden vigorouslydemanded the setting up of an all-party Coalition Government with the task ofeffective resistance to aggression, which would for this purpose enter uponclose co-operation with other peaceable States.” 2)

Lord Halifax revealed to the German Ambassador in London, von Dirksen, on15 March 1939:

“I could well understand Herr Hitler’s taste for bloodless victories, but oneof these days he would find himself up against something that would not bebloodless.” 3)

1) “German White Book” No. 2, p. CXXXIV and doc. 257, 264, 265.2) I.M. Maisky, Who helped Hitler? pp. 100-101.3) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 279; A.J. Toynbee in Survey of

International Affairs 1939-1946, vol. X, p. 61.


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The tactics, employed for imposing their will by those groups working towardswar, went well beyond establishing their own position in the event of a conflict.

“Lord Halifax’s peculiar silence in the weeks prior to the German occupationof Prague, when he was fully aware of the approaching crisis, and especiallyhis failure actually to answer Ribbentrop’s letter of 28 February, gave theGermans the impression that the occupation of Czecho-Slovakia would nothave any notable or unfavourable repercussions on Anglo-German relations.

Further developments clearly show that Halifax was determined to misleadGermany into presuming that not only would he not put up any opposition tothe imminent action in Czecho-Slovakia, but that he would really even favourit. The whole attitude from Chamberlain and Halifax with regards to the Czechquestion from November 1938 up to 15 March 1939 makes it obvious, therefore,why they did not dare to turn the German action into an official reason fortheir protest and their efforts of inciting the British public opinion. But withVansittart’s help they presented a dishonest excuse for their political about-face, which could then be registered into the official protocol.” 4)

So it happened that at a well-chosen moment in time, on the 17 March 1939,the Rumanian Ambassador in London, Virgil Tilea, “following a telephone callfrom Paris” 5) which, apparently, had been arranged by the Foreign Office 6), senta false report to the British Foreign Secretary stating that Germany had presentedan ultimatum to Rumania, or rather, the German government were to havedemanded from Rumania a monopoly of Rumanian exports, as well as forceRumania to adopt measures of restriction of her industrial production in the interestof Germany while, concurrently, the Rumanian frontiers would be guaranteed bythe German armed forces. The news of a German trade delegation staying inRumania, coincidentally in the middle of March 1939, served as the peg on whichto hang the story. The current supposition that Mr. Tilea’s lie was put about by theForeign Office by way of a fabricated “telephone call from Paris” could bereinforced, meanwhile, to the point of becoming conclusive proof.7)

4) P.H. Nicoll, Britain’s Blunder (German edition), p. 130.5) Tilea’s verbal statement to Helmut Sündermann.6) P.H. Nicoll asserts to have looked at documents, according to which secret discussions between

Vansittart and Tilea were held before this Tilea lie happened and that Tilea, in return for hisservices, was to personally profit by a British loan to Rumania for the purchase of Britisharmaments – P.H. Nicoll, op. cit., pp. 131-133.

7) F. Lenz, Nie wieder München, vol. I, pp. 91-107; On 28 August 1939, Lord Halifax repeated thisprocess of a telephone-transmitted bogus telegram in a matter of even more serious consequences,since in this manner he “fabricated” the Polish acceptance for negotiations. cf. the section “TheLast Days of Peace”.


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In British leading circles one was willing, at that time, to follow a path whichis paraphrased as “stop Hitler”, by refusing compromise and as “methods short ofwar”.8) These plans were geared to action and initiative, and one did not even takethe trouble to claim, be it only for propaganda reasons, that Great Britain’s securitywas being menaced by Hitler. Merely a voluntary decision of the Rumaniangovernment to develop their trade with Germany was interpreted by influentialBritish circles as another “disturbance of the European balance”, and from thatwas derived the “necessity” of intervention against Germany. In the words of thePrime Minister:

“If Germany obtained control of Rumania’s resources in oil and wheat,etc., whether this was achieved directly or indirectly, this would mean a greataccession of strength to Germany, and a weakening of the other side.” 9)

Already at that time, Chamberlain liked to refer to German economic activity,to peaceful German work and performance, as “economic penetration”, “whichwould have all the results of a conquest”. He linked this to the question how tostop Germany “save by an ultimatum or, in other words, by a preventive andprecarious war”.10) Although the British Prime Minister did not want to makehimself responsible for such a war, he could count on enough fanatics in the ForeignOffice, who would seize on his remarks high-handedly and who were only toowilling to put them into action. Was not “the case of Rumania” as mentioned byChamberlain, which was seen as difficult “to distinguish between ... flagrant actsof war and ... economic penetration” with “all the results of conquests”, nothingshort of a call to action for his Foreign Office colleagues?

The Tilea lie, as regards timing and content, was too well incorporated intoLondon’s already up-and-running politics of rumour-spreading to suspect the sourceto be any other than the Foreign Office. This was at the time when the Britishgovernment had not as yet elected Poland as the country that, so one imagined,could be roused against Germany – not even by alarming world opinion. As waswell known, “they feared that Poland might draw closer to Germany”11) andassumed, therefore, they would not meet the desired response in Poland. Takingadvantage of its worldwide communication network and the anti-German orientatedobjectives of other countries, the Foreign Office was influencing world opinionby suggesting that, as well as Rumania, there was the Ukraine, the Western Powers

8) K. Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, p. 392. 9) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. V, doc. 2: Chamberlain to the Polish Fo-

reign Minister in London on 4 April 1939.10) K. Feiling, op. cit., p. 402.11) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 207.


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and the Mediterranean region, which were in direct danger of an imminent Germanattack.12) Poland hastened expeditiously to abet this London induced psychosiswith her own alarming news reports;13) the Soviets, for their part, were using thisagitation for their own ends.

This Rumanian shock report was conforming too neatly to the British mentalityand to the intellectual understanding of world opinion; in addition, it was tooaccurately aligned with the goal of the agitation and which, selected for propagandapurposes, had already been blown-up out of all proportion by Churchill in theHouse of Commons debate after the Munich conference: “Opening the route tothe Black Sea”:

a) Since Germany had no common frontier with Rumania, but was separatedfrom the nearest Rumanian tip of land by 350 kilometres of Hungarian territory, aGerman hostile intention towards Hungary was also psychologically worked intothis report.

b) In this way the causes for the disintegration of Czecho-Slovakia could bemisrepresented, and the media could go to town on this falsification by claimingthat Hitler’s march on Prague was to be seen as the next step in his planning ofother acts of aggression against the peoples of the world, as Mr. Eden had alreadypredicted in the House of Commons debate on 15 March 1939.14)

c) British touchiness about the successful commercial policy that Germanypursued with the Balkan countries was especially pronounced in the case ofRumania, since Rumania could become Germany’s most important supplier ofoil, and because Great Britain had considerable vested interests there in the oilindustry and other sectors of the economy.

The specific proof that Lord Halifax had personally concocted the “Tilea lie”is revealed by the chain of clues of his actions on 17 March:

a) Already on the 16 March, Halifax had indicated to the Soviet Ambassador,through Sir Robert Vansittart, the change of policy on Great Britain’s part thatwould be related in the speech from Chamberlain on 17 March*).

b) That Halifax had persuaded his Prime Minister into taking this action ofmaking a stand against Germany is confirmed by several British historians.*)

c) “On the morning” [of 17 March] Halifax already knew that “Chamberlainwould deliver a speech which would be a ‘rather stiff one’”, because he said asmuch to the American Chargé d’Affaires, Johnson. Certainly he did not tell himeverything, but enough to have Johnson sent a telegram to Washington:

12) D. Hoggan, The Forced War, p. 240.13) ADAP, vol. VI, doc. 6.14) I.M. Maisky, op. cit., p. 101.*) I. Colvin, Vansittart in Office, pp. 295, 294.


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“They are suspicious that Hitler will keep on moving and that ratherquickly.” 15)

d) “In the afternoon”, Tilea asked to “urgently see” the British Foreign Secretary.Only then did Halifax “hear” officially of the “German ultimatum”. During thisconversation he told Tilea that in the evening Chamberlain was making a speechinto which, essentially, the consequences of this latest information had alreadybeen incorporated. Apparently, Tilea did not seem surprised about these facts.16)

e) Halifax had it taken down in the minutes of this afternoon conversation withTilea that the Rumanian Minister had “left a telegram” with him, in which he wasinstructed to take this step of informing the British Foreign Secretary.16) Thistelegram, however, cannot be found in any other document, and nobody has referredto the telegram as a source. Evidently Tilea was also left in the dark about a“telegram” that had been recorded in the minutes, since he actually only spoke ofa “telephone call from Paris”.

What is noticeable is that the “news of the ultimatum” was restricted exclusivelyto London, whilst in all the other capitals all was quiet regarding this affair. Forexample, the British Ambassador in Bucharest, Sir Reginald Hoare, sent a telegramto London on 18 March:

“2. It appeared to me so utterly improbable that the Minister for ForeignAffairs [of Rumania] would not have informed me that an immediatethreatening situation had developed here that I called on him as soon as yourtelegrams to Warsaw and Moscow had been deciphered. He told me that hewas being inundated with enquiries regarding the reports of a German ultimatumwhich had appeared in ‘The Times’ and ‘Daily Telegraph’ today. There wasnot a word of truth in it.” 17)

At the same time Lord Halifax was developing an excessive zeal trying to findout what the intended reaction was going to be from Warsaw, Belgrade, Ankara,Athens, Paris, Moscow and Washington in the case of German hostilities againstRumania.18)

Even after indisputable refutation of the Tilea swindle and in spite of the protestsreceived from Bucharest, the British leadership refused to deny this lie. Instead,the British government used this to justify actions which would have seriousconsequences:

15) C. Tansill, Back Door to War, p. 454.16) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 395.17) ibid., doc. 399.18) ibid., doc. 416.


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Chamberlain gave his expected speech in Birmingham, basing it on the “latestinformation” from Lord Halifax.

Hitler was regarded from now on, as intended by the British policy, no longermerely as “aggressor” but as a man who was planning “to dominate the world byforce”.19)

The British government – and, in its shadow, the French government – “werebringing unusual pressure to bear on Rumania” in order to prevent the conclusionof an economic treaty with Germany.20)

“He [Gafencu] complained of the enormous pressure which up to the lastmoment had been exerted on the Government from abroad, in order to preventthe conclusion of the Wohlthat Treaty. For example, the British Minister hadcalled on him concerning an alleged German economic ultimatum, which hehad denied. The Minister again called because his denial was not believed inLondon…

Gafencu also complained of the incredible rumours which had beencirculated in order to overthrow him…” 21)

Based on the Tilea lie, Halifax intensified on the same day of 17 March thedrive to include the Soviet Union in the coalition against Germany. He put forwardthe suggestion that the USSR should be prepared to offer assistance to Rumaniaagainst German aggression and to effect a suitable agreement. The links fordiplomatic and military talks with the USSR, which had already been formedafter Chamberlain’s visits to the Soviet embassy in London on 1 and 9 March1939,22) would thus be consolidated.

Although Chamberlain would have come to know, at the very latest, on 18March that there never had been a German ultimatum aimed at Rumania, he stilltook the initiative for “something” to “be done at once as a demonstration againstfurther German advance”,23) with the explicit request that the USSR, France andPoland join together in a system “of collective security”.

Soviet historians might be right when they write:

“Over the course of a month from 18 March to 17 April, no talks about analliance [between Britain, the USSR and France] were taking place, but insteadthere were made attempts by the British government to push the USSR to takediplomatic actions against Germany of the kind that were bound to have resulted

19) K. Feiling, op. cit., p. 400; F. Berber, Deutschland – England 1933-1939, p. 189.20) ADAP, vol. VI, doc. 131.21) ibid., doc. 80: Report of the German Minister in Bucharest, Fabricius, to the Foreign Ministry

on 24 March 1939.22) E. Hughes, Winston Churchill – British Bulldog – His Career in War and Peace, p. 168.23) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 207.


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in a worsening of German-Soviet relations and which should have causedGermany to abandon the realization of her immediate aims regarding Rumaniaand Poland. They were intent on provoking Germany to attack the USSR.” 24)

They quote, amongst other things, a Foreign Office memorandum of 22 May1939 as proof, in which is stated

“…that it was essential, if there must be a war, to try to involve the SovietUnion in it, otherwise at the end of the war the Soviet Union, with her armyintact and England and Germany in ruins, would dominate Europe.” 25)

On 20 March 1939 Chamberlain wrote to Mussolini:

“I have heard many rumours that Herr Hitler is planning some new coup…Does this mean that the events in Czecho-Slovakia are only the prelude to

further attempts at control of other States? If it does I foresee that sooner orlater, and probably sooner, another major war is inevitable.” 26)

Chamberlain let it be known that to him Germany appeared determined toimpose her will upon “all other” nations. Yet Mr. Chamberlain did not regard itnecessary to rap the media hotheads and rumour-mongers within his ranks on theknuckles and to distance himself from these rumours and catchphrases.

The talks with the Polish Foreign Minister, Beck, taking place in London from4 to 6 April 1939, clearly showed how intensely the British leadership was, timeand again, playing the cards “Hungary”, “Rumania” and “Yugoslavia” against areluctant Poland that did not consider herself – as indeed the Balkan countriesthought likewise – in any danger, in order to get this country on her side by use offear psychosis.27) These attempts, which were the outcome of the many deliberationsin the diplomatic exchanges since the beginning of March 1939 between Londonand Paris, also plainly reveal the purposeful action of the Tilea lie by the ForeignOffice. Any politician that had no connection whatsoever with the Tilea hoaxwould hardly have tried, after the several official denials a fortnight later, to shockthe Polish government that refused to be impressed by the fictitious Germaneconomic ultimatum to Rumania, with the “threat of a German attack from the airon Rumania”. Beck rebuffed this remonstrating from Halifax as “purelytheoretical”.

24) W.G. Truchanovsky, “England’s Foreign Policy” (Russian), p. 354.25) ibid., p. 358; Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. V, doc. 285, p. 331 and

doc. 589, p. 646.26) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV doc. 448.27) ibid., vol. V, doc. 2, 10.


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Principally Britain, but other countries too, would later refer to the establishmentof the Protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia as one of the decisive reasons forwar. This is but a pretext, because the intentions of the British government hadalready been settled before “Prague” – the various drives by the British governmentafter the Munich conference and the staging of the Tilea swindle put the matterbeyond doubt.

Carte Blanche to Poland on 31 March 1939

Mid-March 1939 onwards, the British government had begun to clearly outlinetheir policy of intervention on the Continent and to increase, without any regardto the legal position, the likelihood of an outbreak of war, if not making waraltogether unavoidable. Lord Halifax put Poland into a state of alarm, and hesuggested to change the Polish-Rumanian Alliance, which was directed againstthe Soviet Union, into an anti-German pact. Actually, neither Poland nor Rumaniawas prepared for such a change,1) yet, all the same, Warsaw was again beinginstructed herewith that Britain was resolved to do battle against Germany, andthat Poland could be certain of the unconditional assistance from London. Identicalassurance had already come in from the United States, anyway.2)

The British and French “fears”, which had surfaced on the occasion ofRibbentrop’s amicable meeting in Warsaw at the end of January 1939, butpreviously in evidence in November 1938 with regard to a possible German-Polisharrangement over Danzig3), were finally checked with the perception that hadalready been indicated on 15 November 1938 by Kennard:

“Such a policy (that Poland would have eventually come in on the Germanside [wrote Kennard]), would have been so unpopular in Poland that I do notthink it could have been carried out so long as there were a good chance of theWestern Powers’ defeating Germany. I believe that Poland would have remainedneutral as long as possible but that, when it became clear that Germany waslosing, public opinion would have forced the Government to join the WesternPowers unless some previous action of Soviet Russia had compelled Polandto commit herself to repelling the advance of Bolshevik troops through Polishterritory.” 4)

1) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 551 (28 March 1939) and vol. V,doc. 278, 279.

2) H. Roos, Polen und Europa, p. 395.3) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. III, doc. 321.4) ibid., doc. 312.


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At a time, when the French Foreign Minister “had gained the impression”

“that in the view of the Polish government, there was no imminent dangerof an attack by Germany upon Rumania, by Hungary upon Rumania or byGermany upon Hungary,” 5)

Chamberlain, Lord Halifax and Bonnet tried on 22 March 1939 “to secure her[Poland’s] participation in the organization which we were trying to build up forthe defence of Rumania.” 5) Chamberlain stated at this London conference:

“The object in view was to prevent the expansion of Germanism. In orderto do this, Germany must be made to feel that she would meet with resistancein the east. If Poland and Rumania gave the impression that they were notfavourable to any scheme for the organization of defence against Germany, itwould be impossible to produce such an impression on Germany.” 5)

The Soviet Union was to be integrated into this system afterwards. BothChamberlain and Bonnet agreed that neither Rumania nor Poland felt themselvesthreatened, that these two countries did not see any indications of an “expandingGermanism”, and that both countries (apart from the tiresome minority questionin Poland) were living in perfectly peaceable relations with Germany. But at thesame time Chamberlain and Bonnet were also in full agreement that one onlyneeded to make these countries aware of this “threat” with enough persistence,over and over, to have them eventually do what Paris and, principally, London,wanted. As neither the Tilea lie nor the many rumours had made any impressionup to now, when even the establishment of the Protectorate over Bohemia-Moravia by Hitler failed to produce the slightest change in the Polish andRumanian policies, London now felt obliged to state things somewhat moreplainly.

“M. Bonnet agreed with this conclusion, and thought that something mightbe done on these lines. He had gained the impression that the Poles did notlike vague obligations, but, if something precise could be put before them,they would probably accept.” 5)

On the same day that this discussion in London was taking place, withChamberlain and Bonnet agreeing to “try this new tactic”, the British Ambassadorin Warsaw, Kennard, sent a telegram to the Foreign Secretary:

5) ibid., vol. IV, doc. 484.


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“Mr Beck would clearly not achieve one of our objects, namely to givepublic warning to Herr Hitler.

2. But publication with Poland’s consent might be possible after Polandhad been assured in secret discussion that effective and immediate steps toresist German aggression were contemplated by Western Powers.

3. Difficulty about Danzig is that it is not in itself a good casus belli andwhile Mr Beck would be glad to know (though he could not admit it) that hewas not without backing in the event of negotiations with Germany taking anasty turn, yet he is naturally thinking more of what he can get than what hecan give in the way of collective security; the occupation of Memel has broughthim a step nearer to our ideas and his offer of secret discussions should not, Ifeel, be rejected out of hand but used to complete his conversion.” 5a)

Still on that same 22 March, there arrived information in London, parallel tothe Kennard dispatch, that Beck felt himself obliged “to lean more towardsGermany” and would not “greatly care for a British declaration of aid” against theReich.6) Yet even this did not induce the British government to abandon their plan.

In the meantime, the American Ambassador extraordinary in Paris wasparticularly busy. On 23 March 1939, Bullit urged President Roosevelt “that ‘somenations in Europe’ should stand up to Germany quickly”.7) Next, he got in touchwith the Polish Ambassador in Paris, who defined the game, which the WesternPowers were planning to have with the European nations, in these words:

“The ostensible endeavour to co-operate with Russia in a form and withina sphere, which merely covers the needs of Chamberlain’s internal policy,gives rise to the suspicion that here, it is not only a question of defending thosenations threatened by the new methods of German policy, but also of anideological fight against Hitlerism, and, that the final aim of these actions isnot peace, but the instigation of a revolution in Germany…

It is a distressing and even tragic fact that regarding the present situation, itis not a question of the interests of a single country being at stake but – withoutexaggeration – of the avoidance of a catastrophic armed conflict. I instancehere the case of Poland. I am not acquainted with the text of the British proposal,nor with Herr Hitler’s intentions, but on careful examination of someunmistakable aspects, I have formed my own opinion with regard to the actualsituation. The British initiative which is imprudent, frivolous in its form anddefective in its contents, confronts the Polish Government with the alternativeof either compromising their relations with Germany or seeing their negotiationswith London fail. In the former case, Hitler may feel obliged to use force

5a) ibid., doc. 489: 22 March 1939.6) I. Colvin, Vansittart in Office, p. 301.7) H.E. Barnes, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, p. 204.


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against us, to which we could reply in no other way than by armed resistance.This would lead to a general European conflict…

In the second case, the failure of negotiations with London would be prooffor Hitler of the dishonesty and weakness of British and French policy, whichin turn would encourage him to further expansionist undertakings in Easternand Central Europe, leading sooner or later to the disaster of war. In thesecircumstances it is not only childish but criminal to attempt to make Polandresponsible for war or peace. It must be placed on record once and for all, thatthe responsibility rests principally with France and England, whose senselessor ridiculously weak policy has led up to the situation and the events nowoccurring.” 8)

The question asked by Bullitt, “whether we would accept a joint alliance, ifone were offered us by Britain and France to-morrow”, was avoided by Lukasiewiczwith the remark that this would depend on British military preparedness. Up tonow, the British measures had not convinced Poland that England was fullycommitted to break off her relations with Germany. Until now it was to be just theothers – for example, Poland – that were to compromise their relations withGermany. Bullitt “made my views his own”, had these views conveyed toChamberlain and followed this up (on 26 March) with the statement that the UnitedStates had the means,

“of exercising real pressure upon Great Britain, and he would lend his veryserious consideration to their mobilization.” 8)

During that period, to be exact on 24 March 1939, the British government wasinformed by the Prince Regent of Yugoslavia, Prince Paul,

“that the Polish Government will in no circumstances commit themselvesin advance to fight against Germany in hypothetical circumstances.” 9)

Not only did the Polish, British and French governments have no groundswhatsoever for claiming that Germany was threatening Poland, but the secretdispatches of British military experts suggested, on the contrary,

“that purely from the military aspect the present moment was the best to goto war.” 10)

8) “German White Book” No. 3 – Polish Documents Relative to the Origin of the War, doc. 11:Report of the Polish Ambassador in Paris to Warsaw on 29 March 1939.

9) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 511.10) ibid., vol. V, doc. 51 and appendix.


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In these actual words, the British Air Attaché, J.L. Vachell, informed the ForeignOffice via the British embassy in Berlin on 6 April 1939:

“As you know I returned last evening from a brief visit to Poland, duringwhich I had an opportunity to discuss the situation with a number of differentpeople in Warsaw, and on my way back paid a visit to Danzig, where, owing tothe kindness of Mr Sheppard, our Consul-General, I was able to get an insightinto the local situation. During my stay in Warsaw the Ambassador showed mea dispatch which he had received from Berlin which expressed the opinionthat, from the army point of view, the present was a most favourable opportunityfor a preventive war to be undertaken against further German ambitions, andthat it would even be to our advantage to provoke such a war.” 10)

That strategic points of views such as these were not just a consequence, butrather the basis, of the British guarantee to Poland is revealed conclusively in theBritish documents. Worldwide opportunities were at the disposal of the Britishgovernment to impose their will of the “Balance of Power Politics”.

“At the end of March [1939] a wild rumour that Germany was about toinvade Poland was spread by the Berlin correspondent of the News Chronicle.The rumour served the [British] Government’s purpose. They did not believeit, but the public demanded action. The Government would therefore publicizetheir offer to Beck. In this way domestic opinion would be satisfied and Beck,having received an open pledge, would feel bound to reciprocate by giving hisown pledge to Roumania…

The British therefore began to plan for pressure to be brought on Beck forthe Roumanian guarantee.” 11)

Admittedly, the British government was not exactly quite this weak-willedunder the sway of their press or, rather, the “public opinion in the country” since,after all, it was the government which was largely directing “public opinion in thecountry”. In fact, long before the “will of public opinion” was attracting attention,there had already been discussions by the leading groups in London and Parisabout the plans to get Poland to “compromise” her relations with Germany or,rather, about the vital factors to be brought in later and given as the reason for theguarantee. Also, the guarantee to Poland was not at all a “spontaneous act”,triggered off by a newspaper report, but had been carefully coordinated with thesecret reports to hand. That the British government could not care less about thewill of the people, that is, did not see itself in the role of executor of “public

11) M. Gilbert, R. Gott, The Appeasers, p. 236 (German ed., p. 188).


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opinion”, is also shown in the way that both their recent measures and theirguarantee to Poland, deciding over war and peace in Europe, had been pushedthrough without any debates in Parliament, yes, even without consultations inCabinet, by a handful of men.12)

Thus did Neville Chamberlain hand over, on the 31 March 1939, unconditionally,without having been beseeched or pushed, without any need, the decision makingfor the deployment of the might of the British Empire, with all the consequences, tothe Polish government, indeed, even to subordinate Polish representatives. Thisfullness of power was conferred in a manner that “ignored the question of theaggressor”.13) Chamberlain gave this carte blanche to a country, which

a) had clearly demonstrated, by their partial mobilization of only a few dayspreviously and by the lack of restraint shown by their populace towards the GermanReich and the German Minority groups, their lust for war;14)

b) by no means could be ranked among the close allies of Britain, but wasformerly and still in the year of 1938 regarded by the British government withmuch scepticism and had been judged as unreliable (Sudeten crisis);15)

c) had since 1918 continually and absolutely, in the Minorities question as inher foreign policy attitude, disregarded the principles of the League of Nationsand who had, during the years of 1938/1939 as well, never given any indication tothe world at large of a new direction for reconciliation with her Minority groupsand her neighbours;

d) had, ever since 1919, been proclaiming her expansionist aims and had beenstriving for them;

e) had a dictatorial government;f) could not be at all protected by Britain;g) was not threatened by Germany.

“This binding by Britain to every Polish action, of whatever nature,represents a unique event in the annals of diplomacy.” 16)

The British government extended the blank cheque in a unilateral commitmentagainst Germany, while ignoring the dangers for Poland looming from the USSR,

12) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 484; M. Gilbert, R. Gott, op.cit., p. 235 (German ed., p. 187).

13) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 584; D. Hoggan, The ForcedWar, p. 338.

14) ibid., vol. IV, doc. 573. Compare the telegrams of the British Ambassador in Warsaw, emphasizingthis Polish war psychosis already in the spring of 1939.

15) ibid., vol. III, doc.137 and 206.Already in October 1938, Ambassador Kennard had alerted theForeign Secretary to Colonel Beck’s high-handedness and to the dictatorial order in Poland.

16) K. Zentner, Illustrierte Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges, p. 70.


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which were known to every Western politician, as the many diplomaticcommunications of the pre-war period verify. The awareness of these dangers wasfundamental knowledge for every European politician. However, the Britishguarantee was not in respect to the Polish-German national frontier, but was takenup rather for the permanent fixing of the territories in West Prussia and EasternUpper Silesia that had been stolen by Poland in 1918 from Germany, as well asfor retaining the unacceptable special status of Danzig. That no rights wereguaranteed here, and that subsequently it was a working against peace, is plainlyevident.

This “spontaneous act” even surprised the Polish Ambassador in London,Raczynski:

“It is not certain who was responsible, but probably it was Halifax. Inparticular, I do not know how the British government learnt that the situationwas ripe for such a guarantee. At all events it was not we who told them.” 17)

The British guarantee statement was not even made known beforehand to thePolish Ambassador, despite the fact that on 30 March 1939 he had been in extensivetalks with Lord Halifax.18) Possibly this is to be attributed to the fact that Raczynskiwas refusing to acknowledge that Poland was threatened by Germany, sinceRaczynski had affirmed again during these talks that such a danger was non-existent.But this was not exactly news for Lord Halifax; he had sufficient proof to hand ofHitler’s desire for an understanding with Poland.19) The French government, aswell, did not, “apprehend any imminent coup against Poland”.20)

On the day of the guarantee announcement, Chamberlain emphasized whatLord Halifax on 3 April, shortly before the arrival in London of the Polish Ministerfor Foreign Affairs, Beck, was reiterating in the House of Lords:

“His Majesty’s Government have no official confirmation of the rumoursof any projected attack and they must not, therefore, be taken as acceptingthem as true.” 21)

These plain facts did not, however, prevent Lord Halifax from informing, withdeceitful intent, the world at large – as in the following case telling the Rumaniangovernment –

17) E. Raczynski, In Allied London, p. 12.18) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. V, doc. 5.19) ibid., vol. IV, doc. 573.20) ibid., doc. 574.21) W. Jedrzejewicz, Poland in the British Parliament 1939-1945, vol. I, pp. 5, 23.


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“…that we [the British government] have been led to take this interimaction regarding Poland alone in view of the information in our possession,which seems to indicate the possibility of immediate action against thatcountry.” 22)

The motives that were underlying the guarantee when conferred by the Britishgovernment can both be derived from the verifiable fact that London was notworried about any German aggressive intentions and also from the fact that Halifax,despite the available reassuring news, informed the world of “German aggressiveintentions”. After all, the motives can also be deduced from the text of the guaranteeitself. Prime Minister Chamberlain said in the already mentioned speech of 31March 1939:

“Any change in the legal facts of the case between Poland and Germany, orrather Danzig, will unleash a war from Britain against Germany, if, accordingto the views of the Poles, a restriction of their rights should be present.” 23)

Great Britain “spontaneously” placed herself under the obligation to givemilitary assistance for war, should Poland describe an action as a “threat to herindependence”, requiring a military “response”. Not facts, therefore, were thedecisive factor for determining the likelihood of war, but rather random “grounds”that Poland might choose as pretext for a resolve for war. These included – as wasto be demonstrated – also German negotiation proposals, even German offers of acompromise, though these were always rejected by the Polish side as being a “veilto cover our capitulation”.24)

In this connection it is to be emphasized that Ambassador Kennard, to whoma draft of the British guarantee had been forwarded for his observations, hadexpressly asked the British Foreign Secretary, with reference to the Polish warpsychosis at that time, that the word “unprovoked” (in the event that “unprovoked”action were taken) be inserted into the intended guarantee.25) Equally expressly,Lord Halifax refused this, as

“the German technique of aggression is so varied and so insidious that itmight well be that Poland might in certain circumstances be driven in self-defence to commit a technical act of provocation.” 26)

22) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 583.23) A. Rein, Warum führt England Krieg? p. 10.24) E. Raczynski, op. cit., p. 23.25) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 573.26) ibid., vol. IV, doc. 584 (Halifax on 31 March 1939).


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Chamberlain had given this guarantee to Poland also “in the name of France”,without, however, having received beforehand authority from the Frenchgovernment. The French had shown little willingness “to die for Danzig”;nevertheless, with this decision from London, as well as later, with the ultimatumand with the declaration of war by Britain on 3 September 1939, they weremanoeuvered into a position, which left hardly any avenue open to them foropposing Great Britain’s policy of war. Thus, for better or worse, Paris, had toagree belatedly to the British guarantee to Poland “also in the name of France”.

If the British government, on the strength of learning about German aggressiveintentions towards Poland and out of concern for peace being threatened byGermany, had given the guarantee to assist Poland in the event of an unprovokedattack by Hitler, then this guarantee would have been legitimate and not evendetrimental to peace in Europe. Britain had once again, by giving a guaranteeunder these circumstances, appointed herself – entirely on her own authority – as“adjudicator” over European nations with equal rights and as guardian of the valuesystems of this world – naturally, favouring her national interest. This policy mightstill have been construed as “British”, if Britain could have discerned provocationfrom aggression and had been striving impartially for a fair settlement.

For the first time in British history has London transferred to a foreign powerunconditionally the decision-making on the issue of war or peace and has approvedin advance any of the measures intended by Poland. The time was past, when aFrench Prime Minister (Poincaré 1923) could still say:

“The British government had no intention of getting drawn into a war whichcould result from a Central or East European conflict, fearing that such a conflictcould well be caused by the imprudent actions of powers whom it does notwish to encourage in a policy of adventure by giving in advance a pledge ofassistance.” 27)

Winston Churchill was the one who called the British guarantee to Poland inMarch 1939 a “milestone to disaster”, yet who, nevertheless, approved of thisdecision, was indeed “glad” about it, as he expressed himself at the Teheranconference in 1943 28) – without giving a thought to the foaming Polish chauvinismin the spring and summer of 1939. In particular, this is what the British wartimePremier wrote about the guarantee to Poland:

27) C. Höltje, Die Weimarer Republik und das Ostlocarno-Problem 1919-1934, p. 67: Poincaré toAmbassador de Saint-Aulaire on 23 January 1923.

28) Foreign Relations of the United States – Diplomatic Papers – The Conferences at Cairo andTeheran 1943, p. 598:1 December 1943.


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“History… may be scoured and ransacked to find a parallel to this suddenand complete reversal of five or six year’s policy of easy-going placatoryappeasement, and its transformation almost overnight into a readiness to acceptan obviously imminent war on far worse conditions and on the greatest scale.Our guarantee to Poland [was]… milestones to disaster...

Here was a decision at last, taken at the worst possible moment and on theleast satisfactory ground, which must surely lead to the slaughter of tens ofmillions of people.” 29)

Winston Churchill admits further that not only he himself, but also “everypolitician who understood the situation”, had been or should have been aware, atthe time when the agreement was concluded, of the warlike explosive force of theguarantee to Poland:

“But no one who understood the situation could doubt that it [giving theBritish guarantee to Poland] meant in all human probability a major war inwhich we should be involved…” 29)

This same Winston Churchill declared on 3 April 1939 in the House ofCommons:

“Having begun this new policy there can be no turning back…To stop here with a guarantee to Poland would be to halt in No-man’s Land

under fire of both trench lines and without the shelter of either…We must go forward now until a conclusion is reached. Having begun to

create a Grand Alliance against aggression, we cannot afford to fail. We shallbe in mortal danger if we fail ...

It has become a matter of life or death.” 30)

From this time on, Winston Churchill applied himself vigorously along theselines, that is to say, along the lines of a hardening of positions and of finalizing anunconditional pact of alliance with the Soviet Union.

The State Secretary and member of the resistance in the German Foreign Office,E. von Weizsäcker, writes:

“In a normal pact of alliance the partners agree to mutual military assistancein the event of an unprovoked attack by a third party. Whether such a caseexists is naturally determined by the partner, who is asked to help. But here itwas the opposite. Warsaw had it in their hands to drag the British Empire intowar.” 31)

29) W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol I, book I, “The Gathering Storm”, pp. 270-272.30) W. Jedrzejewicz, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 15-16.31) E. von Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, p. 222.


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If it was not the purpose of the guarantee to bring about a war, then mostdefinitely the aim was to prevent a renewed peaceable revision of the regulationsof the Versailles diktat. 32)

Duff Cooper, the British Minister for Economic Warfare:

“Never before in history have we ever given the decision, on whether GreatBritain was to interfere in a war or not, to another power.

Now the decision rests with a handful of men, whose names – possiblywith the exception of Colonel Beck – are completely unknown to our nation[as were their deeds which they were to commit in the year 1939 – author’snote]. Therefore these strangers can by tomorrow demand the outbreak of aEuropean war.” 33)

A Frenchman, Professor Henri Lebre, gives his opinion in 1958:

“History teaches that Poland and her leading personalities, whosemegalomania was well known and whose courage or rather foolish boldnessleft no room for common sense, would be the last people that could beentrusted with such a responsibility, unless one wanted to hurtle towards acatastrophe.” 34)

Liddell-Hart, the prominent British military author and historian, admitted thatthe guarantee to Poland, the way it had been given, “did have a war-provokingeffect”, which was further intensified by the introduction of compulsory militaryservice in Britain.35)

Russell Grenfell, another British military historian, understood:

“A guarantee is itself a challenge. It publicly dares a rival to ignore theguarantee and take the consequences; after which it is hardly possible for thatrival to endeavour to seek a peaceful solution of its dispute with the guaranteedcountry without appearing to be submitting to blackmail.” 36)

The German historian Michael Freund realized:

32) This conclusion corresponded exactly to the remark by Halifax: “...one of these days he [Hitler]would find himself up against something that would not be bloodless.” – Documents on BritishForeign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 279.

33) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, vol. II, p. 103; A. Buckreis, Politikdes 20. Jahrhunderts, p. 230.

34) H. Lebre in Les Origines Secrètes de la Guerre 1939-1945, p. 104 (German ed., p. 83).35) B.H. Liddel-Hart, Why Don’t We Learn from History? (German edition), p. 56.36) R. Grenfell, Unconditional Hatred, pp. 86-87.


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“The British pact of mutual assistance with Poland was the turning point ofthe European question. Britain had cast the die. ‘The British are now prepared’,as French Prime Minister Daladier said, ‘to see their frontier at the Vistula andno longer on the Rhine’…” 37)

The British blank cheque – apart from the fact that it legalized themistreatment of the German minority in Poland – also violated the wishes of thepeople of the German city of Danzig which, as is well known, was not underPolish sovereignty. Every attempt from the population of Danzig to freethemselves from the bonds that were put on by Versailles and that were, in theyears following, constantly pulled tighter by Poland (economic pressure,expanding the Polish sphere of authority), was now seen as the trigger for Britain’sdecision for war. Every independent country is allowed to conclude allianceswith whomever it wishes and for whatever issue; it is allowed to join any military,economic and political union it may consider necessary. But when, on the otherhand, a “free” German city wants to reunite with Germany, not wishing anylonger to be economically ruined by a foreign power and to let herself beconquered step by step, this then is seen as resulting in a British declaration ofwar against Germany!

The British letter of licence had the effect that was to be expected by allparticipants: Not only did the Polish government not impose any restrictions ontheir country in line with their situation, but on the contrary, as on past occasionsthey lost sight of the extent of their opportunities.38)

A few days after the announcement of the guarantee, the Polish ForeignMinister travelled to London. After the talks held there from 4 to 6 April 1939,even Colonel Beck “was much surprised” about the way he was “worked on”and was made into the hero of the resistance against Germany.39) Beckdisappointed the hopes of the British “with his usual great-power arrogance, …he was not likely to be moved by gentle promptings from Chamberlain andHalifax.” 40) The British hopes, which Beck disappointed, and the promptings,which he resisted, were – just like the unfounded rumours of German troopmovements towards the Polish frontier 41), which had been, similar to the “rumoursof German movements” from the “21 May 1938”, on schedule and intention-specific, circulated throughout the world – solely aimed at one thing: to leave

37) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. II, p. 102.38) J.F.C. Fuller, The Second World War 1939-1945, A Strategical and Tactical History, p. 23

(German ed., p. 18).39) H. Dahms, Roosevelt und der Krieg, p. 30.40) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 212.41) ibid., p. 210.


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Poland holding the baby. Beck had well noted these Foreign Office endeavours;he regarded the negotiations, according to the view of Joseph Potocki, Head ofthe Western Department at the Polish Foreign Ministry, as a means of intimidatingthe Germans “and was not interested in the precise terms of [the] agreement.” 42)

To put it more aptly: He was not interested in the preconditions from London,which were considerably more extensive.

“He [Beck] ‘had not noticed any signs of dangerous military action on thepart of Germany’; ‘no negotiations were proceeding’ over Danzig; ‘the GermanGovernment had never contested Polish rights in Danzig, and had recentlyconfirmed them’; ‘if he were to go by what the Germans themselves said, hewould say that the gravest question was the colonial question’.” 43)

Neville Chamberlain acknowledged on 3 April 1939 in the House of Commonsthat he was trying to encircle Germany, albeit with defensive intentions. Just how“defensive” was this encirclement is revealed by casting a glance at the twocountries invited by Britain for this purpose: Poland had been offering repeatedlysince 1919 to strike at Germany from the East. In spite of that – or just because ofthat, Poland became an important piece in the British game. The Soviet Unionhad openly threatened all non-Communist states with destruction. In spite of that– or just because of that, Britain was trying to secure their military assistanceagainst Germany.

Furthermore, just how offensive this encirclement was intended to be is alsoevident from the diplomatic talks with Foreign Minister Beck in London. Notenough for Lord Halifax to have Beck’s promise of support in the case of a German-British war. In every other conflict, too, in which Germany became embroiled,Poland was to fight and, besides, she was to revise her rejection of Soviet assistance.Furthermore, she was to change the Polish-Rumanian agreement, which wasdirected against Moscow, into an anti-German pact.44) Even Beck refused to takethat many vague risks all at the same time. Lord Halifax propelled this policyonward, although he knew and recognized that neither Hitler nor Mussolini wantedwar.44)

To state more precisely the situation: the British government was pushing thePolish Foreign Minister into the widening possibilities of a likely war, and theyput their signature to the reciprocal guarantee knowing full well that Beck wanted

42) E. Raczynski, op. cit., p. 343.43) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 212 ; Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. V, doc. 1, 2.44) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. V, doc. 2, 10: Record of conversations

between Chamberlain and Beck in London on 4-6 April 1939.


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to humiliate Hitler and set conditions, which would only lead to a worsening ofthe crisis.45) Chamberlain was also following the same course:

“The Prime Minister [Chamberlain] agreed that the gravest matters wereat stake, namely, the future of the two countries. It was essential that theyshould not find themselves left with the worst of both worlds, namely, to findthat they had provoked Germany without at the same time providing themselveswith effective defence.” 44)

The outcome of the London talks was the conclusion of a mutual guaranteeagreement; according to the terms, Poland also committed herself to assist Britainunconditionally, irrespective of the aggressor.

The general feeling of the public at large and of the government in the principalcapitals at this time was reported by, amongst others, the American Chargéd’Affaires, Geist, on 6 April 1939:

“The peaceful atmosphere of the German capital presented a stark contrastto Paris and London, where rumours of war and talk of war were the dominantthemes. There was general confidence in Berlin that it would be possible tokeep the peace in 1939.” 46)

The British Chargé d’Affaires in Berlin, Ogilvie-Forbes, on 23 April 1939,commented in his concluding remarks of a report about the fiftieth birthday ofAdolf Hitler that it appeared to him that “the acclamation by the masses as awhole seemed artificial and apathetic, and not savouring of that enthusiasm whichconstitutes an essential factor in any nation which may be called upon at a moment’snotice to face the prospect of war.” 47)

The Policy of Rumours and of Encirclementfrom March to August 1939

Next to the diplomatic endeavours, an important part in preparing for theSecond World War was played by the rumours, spread systematically, and thevilification about the alleged objectives of German foreign policy, of Germantroop movements, of German armament efforts and of German plans for world

45) Foreign Relations of the United States 1939, vol. I, p. 118: Report from Bullitt to Secretary ofState, Hull, on 6 April 1939.

46) D. Hoggan, The Forced War, p. 351.47) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. V, doc. 275.


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domination. After the Anschluss of Austria to the Reich, British diplomats broughtCzecho-Slovakia into play, which “took him [Hitler] by surprise”.1) False rumoursof German troop movements had set off the May 1938 crisis. Result: Czecho-Slovakia mobilized her army and kept the army at war strength for a whole month,irrespective of the clear refutation of the rumours. All the East European states,and particularly Rumania and Poland, were thrown into a state of alarm withfictitious German plans for an offensive, and the neighbouring countries wereurgently requested to state whether or not they would fight in the war that wasimminent. The British press did not show itself ungenerous after the Munichconference in 1938 and “gave much space to the problem of the Ukraine” and tothe “German aspirations” relating to this; hinting, at the same time, no doubt as away to startle the USSR, “that this territory was not within the British sphere ofinterest. Even remarks by members of the Cabinet were along the same lines”.2)

On 10 March 1939, Stalin had, in his speech to the eighteenth Communist PartyCongress – to say it in the words of a British propagandist –

“expressed his certainty, that with all the reports by foreign reporters onGerman ambitions with regard to the Ukraine – that is, reports such as I myselfhave written – the wish was father to the thought.” 3)

Stalin was to remark, at that time, in these very words:

“The uproar raised over the Soviet Ukraine is characteristic of the British,French and North American press. The representatives of this press wereshouting themselves hoarse that the Germans were marching on the Soviet-Ukraine, that they were at present in possession of the so-called Carpatho-Ukraine, with a population of approximately 700,000, and that the Germanswould carry out, no later than by spring of this year, the annexation of theSoviet-Ukraine, with a population of more than 30 million, to the so-calledCarpatho-Ukraine. It seems that the aim of this suspicious clamouring was toinfuriate the Soviet Union against Germany, to poison the atmosphere and toprovoke a conflict with Germany, although no apparent reasons existed…

It is even more characteristic that certain politicians and representativesof the press in Europe and in the United States of America who, having lostpatience with waiting for the anticipated ‘campaign against the Soviet-

1) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 161.2) “German White Book” No. 3, doc. 14: Letter from the Polish Ambassador in London, Count

Raczynski, of 26 April 1939, to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Warsaw.3) S. Delmer, Black Boomerang; here quoted German edition (Die Deutschen und ich), pp. 390-391.

Cf. also “German White Book” No. 3, doc. 4: US Ambassador Bullitt about German intentions tocreate a Ukrainian puppet-state, on 19 November 1938.


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Ukraine’, have turned to exposing the real background of the non-interventionist policy. They explain quite frankly and put it in black and white,that they felt very “let down” by the Germans, since they, instead of advancingfurther to the East, against the Soviet Union, have now – just imagine – turnedtowards the West and are demanding colonies…” 4)

In spite of the repeated denials both by Stalin and the German press, WinstonChurchill was on 19 May 1939 in the House of Commons again making referencesto the danger of “a German attack upon the Ukraine” 5), and, once again, withoutthe smallest shred of factual evidence.

Thus the tendencies were becoming more and more obvious towards thecreation of an “ ‘anti-aggression’ front of ‘democratic’ States”, which includedthe USSR, from those British forces – such as Churchill, Duff Cooper, Vansittart,Eden... –

“who want a decisive conflict with Germany...[and] who are definitelypreparing for a war and regard Soviet Russia as a State with large reservesand potential military power.” 2)

It was not in Germany, but rather in Great Britain and in the USA that

“war was at the centre of deliberations and talks.” 6)

Just Poland alone received in the summer of 1939 at least 49 alleged secretreports about an imminent attack; always bound up with the question as to whatwould be Poland’s intentions. In March 1939 already, the Polish newspapers have“to warn about the spreading of rumours that are causing unrest amongst thepeople. Arrests of panic-mongers take place regularly”.7)

At the beginning of July1939, the Polish Minister for Foreign Affairs stated inreply to the British Ambassador in Warsaw:

“The number of rumours saying that the Germans were about to marchinto Poland had now reached forty-nine. He had conferred with the Chief ofthe General Staff and it was subsequently decided that not a single Polishsoldier should be mobilized.” 8)

4) J. Stalin, Fragen des Leninismus, pp. 769-770.5) W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. I, book I, “The Gathering Storm”, p. 293.6) “Documents and Materials about the Eve of the Second World War” (Russian), 1948, vol. II

(Dirksen-archiv 1938-1939), p. 62. Message of the German Ambassador in London, von Dirksen,to the Foreign Office on 10 July 1939.

7) A. Buckreis, Politik des 20. Jahrhunderts, p. 85.8) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, vol. II, p. 436.


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At the same time the French General Staff was inundated with similar“messages” concerning France.

Nobody could describe this systematically pursued purposive policy as en-deavours for peace. Every psychologist is well aware of what it means to “placethe concept ‘war’ at the centre of deliberations and talks”. Added to this, there aresome governments who, for reasons of internal affairs, no longer dared to practisea policy of appeasement, as this would have been the end of their Cabinet.9)

A few illustrations for these rumours:After the 15 March 1939:

a) “But the British government is being swept along by the rapidly growingground swell of public indignation in the country. A deluge of rumoursinundates the British government. The British files are filled with messagesand news about the Germans’ new plans in the East.” 10)

b) “Straight after Hitler had entered Prague, rumours emerged that theReich, directly after playing the Slovak card, wanted to lead off with the Croatcard in the same manner, in order to establish itself on the Adriatic.” 10)

c) April 1939:“Rumours are following one on the heels of the other. The Polish Military

Attaché in Berlin tells the British Chargé d’Affaires that the German army isready to march. The French General Staff is informed by Swiss sources thatthe Reich plans a sudden attack against France.” 10)

d) Lord Halifax in a confidential report to President Roosevelt on 4 April1939:

“...the British fleet might at any moment be the object of a Nazi lightningattack.” 11)

e) “... in spite of rumours of German plans for the invasion of the Ukraineand Holland, Switzerland and Rumania …” 12)

f) “... despite various rumours ... as regards Danzig...” 13)

Definite: “The German Government are contemplating securing the returnof Danzig to the Reich by Herr Hitler’s birthday, April 20th.” 13)

9) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 277.10) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 9, 138, 129.11) C. Tansill, Back Door to War, p. 514.12) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VI, doc. 460.13) ibid., vol. IV, doc. 547 and vol. V, doc. 163.


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“Towards the end of June, another rumour suggested that a German coupin Danzig was about to take place.” 14)

“When the putsch failed to materialize, it was then covered up with clumsyexcuses as, for example, that the Führer had retreated faced with the warningsand the determination from the democracies.” 15)

To stir up some action, Lord Halifax made this prognosis on 12 June 1939 tothe Soviet Ambassador:

“It seems to me that Herr Hitler will find it difficult to face the NurembergConference without first having made an attempt to solve the Danzig problem,and that, if this is so, we must expect July and August to be disturbed months.”16)

Maisky saw through these unfounded digs quite clearly, having not remainedunaware, on the basis of several other indications, that Halifax was aiming atgetting the Soviet Union involved in those “disturbed months” of July and August,instead of taking measures to free the atmosphere from conflict.17) Already in aprevious conversation, held in Geneva on 22 May 1939, Maisky had felt obligedto retort that Halifax evidently did not understand very well the psychology ofmen like Hitler.

“He was not at all a fool. He [Hitler] would never engage in a war if hethought he might loose it. Even our present negotiations were forcing him todisplay a certain care: so far, for example, he had not attacked Poland. But ifa triple pact of mutual assistance were concluded Hitler would be obliged toretreat.” 18)

It was the British politicians who were continually leaking explosive clichésto the “free press” and would thus point international tension in the direction ofthe detonation. The level-headed and responsible publicists were graduallysilenced, even if it was only for the reason, at least at first, that they were notselling anything sensational or thrilling. In the end, only those were regarded aspatriotic and peaceable, who would speak out in favour of no compromise in thesense of humiliating Germany. This concerned the authoritarian countries likePoland as indeed it did also the “democratic governments”, which were sustained

14) M. Gilbert, R. Gott, The Appeasers, p. 244.15) A. Buckreis, op. cit., p. 191.16) I.M. Maisky, Who helped Hitler? p. 133.17) “New Times” (Russian), Moscow 1962, Nos. 2, p. 29; 3, p. 26; 4, p. 26: I.M. Maisky, “On the

Eve of the Second World War” and ibid., No. 2, 1964, p. 22: I.M. Maisky, “1940 in England”.18) I.M. Maisky, Who helped Hitler? p. 130.


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by “public opinion” and were easily “toppled”. Just how easily could especiallythe appeasement-politicians in the British government be intimidated with a nodin the direction of bringing down the government is described by the Britishhistorian A.J.P. Taylor:

“They [the government] never attached practical value to the Sovietalliance; and they drifted into negotiations unwillingly, driven on by agitationin Parliament and in the country.

Now the British were already committed – their hands tied not so much bytheir formal alliance with Poland, as by the resolution of British publicopinion...” 19)

The British government did not content themselves with the “wave of rumours”of alleged German marching orders towards the East and the West20) (in any case,there is no trace of attempts from the British government to counteract anyrumours), but resumed their encirclement of Germany after the guarantee pledgeto Poland: They initiated on 9 March 1939 diplomatic talks with Moscow withthe aim of committing the USSR militarily in Central Europe. Heedless of others,and without any hesitation, was thus dragged into the quarrels – comparatively soridiculous – of the European countries that very Power which must be regardedby every European with any insight as the biggest threat to the order of theEuropean nations. The British government were promising to the Netherlands,Switzerland, Rumania and Greece a guarantee of independence, and they tried toinclude Turkey and Yugoslavia, they were evading the German-Italian efforts toachieve peace, they demanded in April 1939, applying heavy pressure, that Swedenjoin a blockade against Germany in the event of war, and they reinforcedRoosevelt’s “moral declaration of war” (the request to Hitler and Mussolini madeon 15 April 1939 to give a non-aggression pledge to a whole host of states, evenoutside Europe).20)

“On April 14 the British Government made an official proposal to theSoviet Government that it should give Poland and Rumania the same kind ofunilateral guarantee that Britain and France had given Poland on March 31,and Rumania and Greece on April 13.” 21)

A “same kind of unilateral guarantee” meant likewise: ignoring the questionof aggressor, transferring decision-making powers about war and peace in Europeto Warsaw and making a decision for war easier for the Polish leadership.

19) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., pp. 266, 272.20) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 129, 171, 150-152, 178.21) I.M. Maisky, op. cit., p. 110.


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On the occasion of a visit to London in April 1939, the Rumanian ForeignMinister Gafencu recommended to the British that they should declare that achange of the British attitude towards Germany would depend on a rearrangementof the Czech situation, on which Hitler seemed prepared to negotiate – alas to noavail. Instead, Gafencu was requested to extend the Polish-Rumanian Treatyagainst Germany.22)

Following the recommendations from Washington to introduce compulsorymilitary service prior to the announced Reichstag speech to be given by Hitleron 28 April 1939, the British government decided to take this step two days beforeand “actually announced the condition of a danger of war.”20) In this way, Londonhad deliberately created a situation that not only would have prevented Hitlerfrom giving way, but which was bound to provoke. This policy was all the moreserious at this stage, as now there was no going back, not for their own governmentand not for the others’ government, and since Great Britain and France had alreadystarted working towards incorporating the USSR into the anti-German coalition.

Neville Chamberlain introduced conscription on 26 April 1939, withoutGermany giving any cause for this. It was done without consulting Parliament,and he justified taking this step “into a definite zone of war” with the excuses ofwanting merely “to avoid the charge of rejecting his [Hitler’s] advances” and ofnot having done more.23) The importance that Chamberlain attached to this measureis indicated in the fact that in 1937 the British government had rejected it with thecomment that “the Services were much better related to supply than in 1914” andthat “wars are won not only now with arms and men, they are won with thereserves of resources and credit”.24) British industry was not to be weakened andconscription – as it was expressly stated in 1937 – was only to be brought in afterentering “a definite zone of war”.24)

What was Chamberlain’s reaction to the warnings, since March 1939, fromEnglish circles in high places to beware of giving Germany any cause to feelencircled and to be on his guard against “bringing in Russia, which might provokeimmediate war”? Chamberlain professed on 26 March 1939,

“... to the most profound distrust of Russia. I have no belief whatever inher ability to maintain an effective offensive, even if she wanted to. And Idistrust her motives, which seem to me to have little connection with ourideas of liberty, and to be concerned only with getting every one else by the

22) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. V, doc. 278, pp. 304-306.23) K. Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, p. 405; M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart

in Dokumenten, vol. II, p. 178.24) K. Feiling, op. cit., pp. 318-319.


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ears. Moreover, she is both hated and suspected by many of the smaller States,notably by Poland, Rumania, and Finland.” 25)

“... that a Russian alliance might divide the Balkan resistance to Germanyand that, if it drove Spain over to the Axis, we might thereby lose more in theWest than we should gain in the East.” 25)

Yet, Chamberlain did not only consent to coalition talks with that selfsamepartner who “was playing power politics rather than seeking peace”,25) but heeven intensified the tripartite negotiations that played “such a great part in theevents which directly preceded the outbreak of the Second World War”.26)

Undoubtedly he did so under pressure from the “public” (or rather, the opinion-steerers of the press), from the party leaders and from the Foreign Office. But itwas his responsibility. Also, he fully understood, as indeed did Lord Halifax andthe French government, the dangers for Poland and Rumania, which the Britishpolicy evoked for these countries. Halifax put it candidly into these words in hismemoirs:

“Their [the Polish and the Rumanian government’s] fear of the Soviet wasat least as great as, and probably greater than, their fear of Germany. Anintelligent rabbit would hardly be expected to welcome the protection of ananimal ten times its own size, and whom it credited with the habits of a boa-constrictor.” 27)

While on 1 November 1938 Halifax had affirmed in a letter to Phipps, hisAmbassador in Paris, that “Poland can never ally herself with Soviet Russia” 28)

and while already earlier, indeed in May 1938, in the face of the Sudeten crisis,these topics had been extensively debated in Paris,29) so Beck’s talks in London,at the beginning of April 1939, revealed anew that Poland did not fear Germany,but did, however, fear rather the Soviets. In spite of that, Chamberlain and Halifaxwere constantly talking their Polish partner into believing in the “German threat”,and they tried to impose on him Soviet assistance, thereby quite clearlydisregarding Poland’s vital interests.

Churchill was trying recklessly, although not a member of the government atthe time, to obtain for the Red Army the right of transit through the EasternEuropean countries.

25) ibid., pp. 403, 408, 407.26) I.M. Maisky, op. cit., p. 103.27) Halifax, Fulness of Days, p. 206.28) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. III, doc. 285.29) G. Bonnet, Fin d’une Europe. De Washington au Quai d’Orsay, pp. 199-200, 134-135 (German ed.,

Vor der Katastrophe, pp. 69-70, 42).


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“Above all, time must not be lost. Ten or twelve days have already passedsince the Russian offer was made. The British people, who have now, at thesacrifice of honoured, ingrained custom, accepted the principle of compulsorymilitary service, have a right, in conjunction with the French Republic, to callupon Poland not to place obstacles in the way of a common cause. Not onlymust the full co-operation of Russia be accepted, but the three Baltic States,Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, must also be brought into association.” 30)

On 18 May 1939, Churchill telephoned the Soviet Ambassador:

“‘Tomorrow’, he said, ‘there will be a foreign policy debate in Parliament.I intend to speak, and to draw attention to the unsatisfactory way thenegotiations with Russia are being carried on…But before speaking on thissubject in public I would like to know from you what exactly are the SovietGovernment’s proposals which Chamberlain doesn’t want to accept? Thereare many rumours going about!’” 31)

Having acquainted himself with the Soviet proposals, Churchill declaredafterwards:

“I should think that they are all acceptable.” 31)

Winston Churchill made the additional remark in his memoirs:

“When events are moving at such speed and in such tremendous mass asat this juncture, it is wise to take one step at a time. The alliance of Britain,France and Russia would have struck deep alarm into the heart of Germany in1939, and no one can prove that war might not even then have been averted.The next step could have been taken with superior power on the side of theAllies.” 32)

Looking at this past history, can there remain any doubt as to what WinstonChurchill had in mind as the “next step” that he would have taken? Churchillexplained further:

“It was a pity not to have placed him [Hitler] in this awkward position,which might well have cost him his life…

If for instance, Mr. Chamberlain on receipt of the Russian offer had replied,

30) W. Churchill, op. cit., vol. I, book I, “The Gathering Storm”, p. 285.31) I.M. Maisky, op. cit., pp. 125-126.32) W. Churchill, op. cit., pp. 284-285.


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‘Yes. Let us three band together and break Hitler’s neck’ or words to thateffect, Parliament would have approved, Stalin would have understood, andhistory might have taken a different course.” 32)

Anthony Eden volunteered to go to Moscow in order to complete thenegotiations with the Soviets, but Chamberlain rejected the proposals.33) LordHalifax tried once again to induce the Soviet Ambassador on 22 May 1939 inGeneva, on the occasion of the Council of the League of Nations’ sessions, toaccept the British suggestion of giving Soviet guarantees to the Eastern Europeancountries and to convince him of the risk that a full mutual military allianceinvolved:

“Then all of a sudden Halifax took it into his head to try to frighten me.Such a pact [the triple pact of mutual assistance, as proposed by the USSR,concerning all the East European countries] might arouse Hitler to fury, hewould begin to shout about ‘encirclement of Germany’, this would unite thewhole German people around him, and he would launch a war. In this way wewould ourselves provoke precisely what we wanted to avert by our actions.”34)

But in July 1939, “Hitler having already made numerous small diplomaticretreats”,35) London had already disassociated themselves also from this realiza-tion or, rather, from this restraint. In the second half of July 1939, a politicalagreement between Britain, France and the USSR opened up military negotiations,which were offensive in their design.

This agreement of 24 July, which was to come into force once a militaryconvention had been concluded, committed Great Britain, France and the USSRto immediate mutual assistance in the event of war (without waiting for anymeasures from the League of Nations): in the case of an act of direct or of “in-direct” aggression by Germany against one of the signatory powers or “againstanother European state” – inasmuch as an “interested party” were to call any oneaction (this might even be a peaceful unification) as to be “threatening” theindependence or neutrality of that state, and were to “respond” militarily.

With the help of this agreement text any “interested party” could single outany situation whatever and interpret it either as “neutrality being threatened” oras a “threat to independence” or as “indirect aggression” or as “a threat ofviolence”, even when the countries refused such an “interpretation”. Accordingto this agreement text, a European war and, in the wake of it, a world war was

33) I.M. Maisky, op. cit., p. 144.34) ibid., p. 129.35) D.J. Dallin, Soviet Russia’s Foreign Policy, p. 36.


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bound to be triggered off, for example, if an “interested party” defined the voluntaryrelinquishing of Danzig to Germany by Poland or a German-Russian tradeagreement or the giving of moral (not even material-financial!) support byGermany to Finish, Latvian, Lithuanian or Estonian right-wing parties as“neutrality being threatened” or “indirect aggression”. Given that the draft treatyof 17 June 1939 between Britain and France was already formulated in such away that any miniature state in Europe could have picked a fight with Germanyand triggered off a war on all fronts, this political accord with the Soviets nolonger even necessitated a row between Germany and one of her neighbours. TheReich government could have employed any action whatsoever – according tothe wording of this agreement – with the same result: Even friendly endeavourstowards her neighbours would have produced an automatic sequence of eventsarising from the military alliance of the enemy. Opinions of neighbouring countrieswere declared not valid. Furthermore, the fact that – as Kennard wrote fromWarsaw –

“Poles of all classes are obsessed with fear of Communism and ... no Polewould ever expect to recover any territory occupied by Soviet troops...” 36)

did not interest London. From now on, just the opinion of an “interested party”counted, i.e. of Great Britain, of France or of the USSR.37)

“At the end of July [1939] the Reich must make a decision. The sending ofthe Western military mission puts an even more realistic and more threateningcomplexion on the negotiations between Moscow and the West.” 38)

“The French thought in more practical terms. They were only concernedto get the Red Army involved in conflict with Hitler, and did not mind if thiswere done at the expense of Poland.” 39)

This, of course, did interest the British Foreign Secretary equally, who wastrying to secure the Soviet Union’s involvement by resorting to alarmist newsreports about an imminent German attack on Poland, these having provedrepeatedly effective in the past.40) The military talks with Stalin culminated in thereality that France, then Britain also, had agreed to the handing over of the Baltic

36) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 90: Kennard to Halifax on 20August 1939.

37) Rönnefarth, H.K.G., Konferenzen und Verträge: Vertrags-Ploetz (Ploetz-Treaties), pp. 171-172.38) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 130.39) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 258.40) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 94.


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States to the USSR and, at the last moment, they offered East Poland or, rather,the whole of Poland and Rumania, without the consent of the countriesconcerned.41) It is of considerable significance that the political agreement of 24July 1939 and the planned military convention did not fail because of reservationsfrom Britain and France, but rather because of the refusal of Stalin, who declinedto pull Britain’s chestnuts out of the fire and to march through Poland, Rumania,Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia without those countries’ consent, while Britain waspromising, in the event, to send only two divisions as support.41)

In this way Chamberlain, who had already been talking since April 1939 of a“zone which was neither peace nor war”,42) not only aggravated the Europeansituation, but from 9 March onwards, at the latest from mid-July 1939, made ithopeless. Moreover, he himself did not believe that an alliance with the SovietUnion would preserve the peace.43) In mid-July he defined his position thus:

“Danzig is, of course, at present the danger spot. I have told Musso plainlythat if Hitler tries to get it by force, it will mean starting the European war. Towhich M. replies ‘let the Poles agree that Danzig goes to the Reich, and I willdo my best to get a peaceful agreed solution’. But that is not good enough…”44)

So this solution “was not good enough”! On 1 September 1939, speaking inthe House of Commons, he added this:

“We have no quarrel with the German people, except that they allowthemselves to be governed by a Nazi government. As long as that governmentexists and pursues the methods it has so persistently followed during the lasttwo years, there will be no peace in Europe.

‘They were fighting’, he told the Commons, for principles, ‘the destructionof which would involve the destruction of all possibility of peace and security’,and not just for the ‘far-away city’ of Danzig.” 45)

Stating this, Chamberlain has unequivocally admitted that the Britishgovernment, already before the Danzig dispute, had decided on a course whichwas resolved on the “destruction of the Nazi regime” because of “Hitler’s foreignpolicy since 1938”. Thus London now arrogated to themselves the right todetermine for another state, in diplomatic relations with them, what form of

41) ibid., vol. III, pp. 96-124.42) K. Feiling, op. cit., p. 406.43) D. Hoggan, The Forced War, p. 440.44) K. Feiling, op. cit., p. 407.45) ibid., pp. 415, 418.


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government was allowed and which was not. In reality, “not a trace of anideological motive” can be found in Chamberlain.44) Yes, Chamberlain knew andacknowledged that Hitler had been seriously contemplating an Anglo-Germanagreement, and that he had worked out a generous, no time-limit, settlement withPoland.46)

“...but there is no sign of any haste on the part of Germany.” 47)

The time was past, when even Chamberlain himself had uttered these words:

“The past treatment of Germany had been neither generous nor wise; unlessthis strong and virile people can be induced, in partnership with others, toimprove the general lot, there will be neither peace nor progress in Europe inthe things that make life worth living.” 48)

Since then, Chamberlain had let himself be turned into the exponent of apolicy which endorsed the “neither generous nor wise” treatment of Germanyand thus stood against “peace and progress in Europe”. No longer were questionsof rights and justice the decisive factor for London – neither in 1938 nor in 1939– but “British principles”. Chamberlain drew his courage

a) from the “positive assurance of American support” and timely help, andfrom “Roosevelt’s rising tone”;

b) from the increase in armaments since “Munich”,c) from the “decline in German finances” andd) from the hope of a “collapse of the German home front”.49)

Germany could not hold similar “hopes” with regard to her enemies, couldnot base her policies on suchlike expectations.

In the middle of July 1939, Great Britain passed the Overseas Guarantee TradeAct providing Export Credits of over 60 million pounds, which was to serve thepurpose of making the purchasing of war material from Great Britain easier forPoland, Greece, Rumania and Turkey. Although, in the end, this law did not cometo fruition, it did at least give Poland a considerable psychological boost, especiallysince the Inspector-General of the British Army, General Ironside, arrived on 19July 1939 in Warsaw for additional General Staff talks,50) and especially, when on3 August London granted Poland a credit of 8.163 million pounds for purchasesin the United Kingdom.50)

46) ibid., p. 417.47) W. Jedrzejewicz, Poland in the British Parliament 1939-1945, vol. I, p. 42.48) K. Feiling, op. cit., p. 392.49) ibid., pp. 394, 412, 418.50) D.M. Projektor, “The War in Europe 1939-1941” (Russian), p. 35; A. Buckreis, op. cit., p. 221.


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Based on the impressions formed from closely following the world press andon his familiarity with the proceedings within British secret diplomacy in thesummer months of 1939, the British Ambassador in Berlin, who had gained anaccurate insight into the official stance and, to a large degree, also into internalmatters of the Reich capital, conveyed a grave warning to his Foreign Secretaryof State. In this communication from 18 July 1939, Henderson charged hisgovernment, in rather candid wording, with nothing less than pursuing a policyof war:

“It is very conceivable that the wise men of the future will say that weshould have made war on Germany in 1939, just as many now say that weshould have done so in 1938. But unless and until I am informed to the contrary,I express my opinions on the basis that we wish to avoid war, if possible.

If that is axiomatic, our right policy in my view is to show the utmostfirmness combined with an absence of anything which can only be construedhere as deliberate provocation or intention on our part to wage a preventivewar, or a fixed desire to humiliate Hitler himself. If we drive him into a cornerhe will not be able to extricate himself without war…

Hitler may already believe that Britain means to make war on Germany inany case. If he does not, it will not take very much more to make him think so.He has the advantage of being able to take the initiative when and where helikes, if he is convinced of that. Nor, honestly, do I think it politic or even fairunduly to stimulate the Poles.

So many people, such as the Otto Strassers and others of this world, areseeking with intense pertinacity to drive us to war with Germany. I sometimesfear lest their campaign to that end may unduly influence our counsels athome.” 51)

There was nothing mentioned in that secret communication that Hitler wasthreatening Britain or other countries with the central idea of “living space-conquest” or suchlike or that Hitler’s intention was “to make war”. Indeed, Hitlerhad “contributed little to the course of diplomacy between April and August1939.”52)

On 8 August 1939, the British newspaper, the “Daily Mail”, noted that therewere missing

“any statements from the Prime Minister as to whether he approves ofthese speeches that were made against Danzig and against Germany, and whichinevitably are pushing towards war. Objectively speaking, it must be pointedout that from the German side there have been no speeches made by any

51) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VI, doc. 347.52) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 219.


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leading statesmen against Poland, such as was given by the Marshal [Smigly-Rydz – ‘Danzig is a Polish lung’] last Sunday [6 August] in Cracow. If Britainis letting things drift any further along these lines, she will incur some blame,come the explosion.” 53)

Was it not the British government that had wilfully interfered in these foreignaffairs, in this far-away city, thus making themselves jointly responsible? HadChamberlain really acted according to what his party colleague, Winston Churchill,had in mind, who had recommended in 1933 to adjust “this defiance of historyand reason” (the East German border as established by Versailles), and who hadcalled this “one of the greatest practical objectives of European peace-seekingdiplomacy”? 54)

The burning questions of rights and humanitarian issues in the German-Polishrelations were for British politics in 1939 no longer considered worth theirattention, let alone their commitment, although Great Britain would still havebeen under the obligation, even at this stage, to provide for the protection of theminorities in Poland, because of the Versailles resolutions and because of Britain’smembership of the Commission of Three in the League of Nations for Danzig.The Treaty for the Protection of Minorities and its observance had been, after all,the condition for the recognition of the Polish State. The letter from Clemenceau,President of the Supreme Council of the Versailles Peace conference, to the PolishPrime Minister Paderewski dated 24 June 1919, calls to Poland’s

“attention the fact that the Polish nation owes the recovery of itsindependence to the victory of the Allied Powers. This fact, however, wasto put quite specific obligations upon the Great Powers, which were to seeto it that – by guaranteeing certain political-humanitarian fundamental rights– the stability of this region, in which they had established permanently anew order, would not be jeopardized. Naturally, these obligations on theGreat Powers were closely connected to their duties towards the defeatednations, which needed to be implemented. The securing of internal stabilityand the maintaining of peace in the Eastern Central-European region withan internationally guaranteed protection of the minorities was to be givenpriority.”55)

But this seemed long forgotten. Recognizing German minority grievances asjustifiable was now called “betrayal of the national interests of Poland” and a

53) A. Buckreis, op. cit., p. 222.54) K. Feiling, op. cit., p. 247.55) E. Viefhaus, Die Minderheitenfrage und die Entstehung der Minderheitenschutzverträge auf der

Pariser Friedenskonferenz, p. 208.


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“threat to Polish freedom and independence”. Poland’s desire to annex East Prussiaand the Oder-territories was henceforth tolerated; indeed, it was secretlyencouraged.56) The persecution of the minority Germans [Volksdeutschen] inPoland, in the meantime, came to be regarded by the British as a “minor point”.57)

With the remark that “the Poles would never allow anybody to send them aRunciman”,58) the German grievances were rashly dismissed without investigatingor stopping the Polish de-Germanization policy. At the same time London wasinterfering in German-Polish relations by imposing on Poland an unconditionalguarantee directed solely against Germany. Neither Great Britain nor the UnitedStates of America have taken – apart from a superficial effort by London on thelast day before the outbreak of war – a single step to subdue the Polish chauvinismwhich had been boiling over for months.

The following three quotations, although referring to Czecho-Slovakia, arealso describing pertinently the British-French policy on Poland up to the outbreakof the war in 1939:

Lord Halifax had stated on 22 May 1938 to German Ambassador von Dirksen,

“that in the case of a German entry into Czechoslovakia, in whatevercircumstances, even in the event of serious acts of provocation by the Czechs,the French would march against us [Germany] ...

In the event of a European conflict, it was impossible to foresee whetherBritain would not be drawn into it.” 59)

“In whatever circumstances, even in the event of serious acts of provocationby the Czechs” – the man speaking these words was the one principally responsiblefor the carte blanche given to Poland ten months later.

State Secretary von Weizsäcker related his conversation of 8 July 1938 withthe American Ambassador in Berlin, Hugh Wilson:

“It had never been stated publicly in Britain, or even in France, that theCzechs must not go beyond a certain limit of patience if they did not wishfinally to gamble away the support of the Western Powers in the event of aconflict...

Wilson entirely agreed with this and remarked that British politics had

56) Die Jalta Dokumente, pp. 166, 171: Compare the geographic maps of Poland, well-known alsoin London, with the supposedly “historical boundaries of Poland” about which no objection wasmade by the British government: B. de Colonna, Poland from the Inside, p. 160 seq.

57) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 339: statement by Ambassador Henderson.58) ibid., vol. II, p. 200: the British Chargé d’Affaires in Warsaw, Norton, to William Strang, head of

the Central Office at the Foreign Office.59) ADAP, vol. II, doc. 191, p. 322.


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been like this for the past 10 years. Although in fact not wanting war, nothingof what was really necessary was done to avoid it.” 60)

A German historian on the Sudeten crisis in 1938:

“Had Britain’s staying away been definite, no big international conflictover Czecho-Slovakia would have developed in the first place. In reality, thedecision was left up to Great Britain, not whether to remain neutral in aEuropean war (that was quite impossible), but whether a European war wasactually going to take place.” 61)

It is thus obviously valid to transfer these three quotations to Poland in theyear 1939, especially since

“on the whole it is indeed a matter of complete indifference to the Londongovernment, whether or not Danzig or the Corridor is German or Polish.” 62)

But, as it turned out to be, the London government was not exactly indifferenton this issue. Of course, they were not interested in either Danzig or the Corridoras such, but they were concerned that the “Nazi pestilence” – that means: theGerman competition – be “wiped out” or rather be “eliminated”, according to the“principles” of the British policy on Europe.

Britain contributed nothing at all during the whole course of the year 1939 todiffuse the ever worsening European situation, but rather initiated severaldisastrous steps. As mentioned already, even the British Ambassador, Henderson,could not hold back his doubts about such a policy. On 23 May 1939, he wrote tohis colleague of many years’ standing, Kirkpatrick:

“Have the Foreign Office or His Majesty’s Government any views...? It isnot enough to say ‘No’ to the Dictator in a case where there is a grievance.The remedy has also to be found. Otherwise the ‘No’ has but an ephemeralvalue.” 63)

Of course, Henderson had been left in ignorance about the fact that his ForeignSecretary, Halifax, had only two days before, on 21 May, once more told his“proposals” in Geneva to Carl J. Burckhardt in no uncertain terms:

60) ibid., doc. 286, p. 481-2.61) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. I, p. 15.62) ibid., vol. III, p. 261.63) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol.V, doc. 605.


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“... the British would fight for Poland in any German-Polish war regardlessof the origins of the conflict.” 64)

The British government could not hide behind “being ignorant” of thehappenings in Poland that had for many months been discussed in the worldpress: Their own Ambassadors had – upholding their duty of looking after theinterests of Great Britain – repeatedly warned about the unpredictable Polishrashness and had recommended putting pressure on Warsaw.65) This is whatKennard telegraphed from Warsaw on 30 March 1939, one day before the statementwas made about the guarantee to Poland:

“It is of course unlikely that the Polish Government would deliberatelyprovoke Germany. But in the present state of feeling here the possibility ofsome impulsive action cannot altogether be excluded.” 66)

Kennard on 16 August 1939:

“As I was not entirely satisfied with those parts of my conversation withMr. Beck relating to the press and the minority, I took these matters up againthis morning with Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs who deals especially withthese questions...

I felt that the Polish Government should make every effort to prevent theappearance in the Polish press of any article which..., might give extremeirritation to Herr Hitler and that the authorities concerned there should berequested to avoid any unduly energetic measures of repression against theGerman minority.” 67)

Kennard on 17 August 1939:

“I have impressed upon these people [the Poles] that at the present momentHitler seems undecided as to what he will do, and that it is therefore essentialthat no incident, word in the press or case of maltreatment of the minorityshould be allowed to give him a pretext to go off the deep end...

I have even suggested to my American colleague, who has a good deal ofinfluence here, that he should point out that it would do Poland considerableharm in the eyes of public opinion in America should Hitler produce a longlist of cases of maltreatment of the German minority here or in any way showthat Poland has behaved unreasonably...

64) D. Hoggan, op. cit., p. 393.65) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 110: Kennard to Halifax on 16

February 1939.66) ibid., vol. IV, doc. 573.67) ibid., vol. VII, doc. 21.


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You may rely on me to do my best to control extreme feeling here, but onecannot of course push them too far – in fact it would be useless to do so.” 68)

Henderson on 16 August 1939:

“What Hitler says about his attitude towards the press is unfortunatelytrue. If we do want to avoid a catastrophe, we must face the fact. We willcertainly have war if the press talks about Hitler yielding to intimidation.Surely if the press were told that quite clearly, it would realize itsresponsibilities. History will judge the press generally to have been the principalcause of the war...

I am convinced that Hitler was speaking the truth when he talked aboutholding his generals back this year. Of all Germans, believe it or not, Hitler isthe most moderate so far as Danzig and the Corridor are concerned.

If there is to be a truce (and it is the last hope), the ill-treatment of theGerman minority in Poland must be stopped. I wish some English newspaperswould send correspondents out to see for themselves and for you. Weizsäckerhas always been very bitter to me on this subject. Our embassy at Warsawknows nothing about it, just as I know nothing about what happens in theGerman provinces. How can it? Warsaw with its civilized and intelligent, notto say astute clique with which one consorts there, is one thing. Outside in thecountry the Poles are an utterly uncivilized lot. ‘Calm and restraint’. Yes,doubtless, at the top and if words mean anything. But elsewhere, no. I haveheard too many tales from well-disposed neutrals to believe a word of it.” 69)

But not even these recommendations could induce the British government toinform themselves and to caution the Poles to show restraint. Only on 26 Augustdid London make the suggestion that the Polish leadership should approach theGerman government whether they would “contemplate making an exchange ofpopulations”.70) At the same time, Poland should permit entry to neutral observers.Both proposals were to cut the ground from under Hitler’s detailed complaints ofthe ill-treatment of the minority Germans. Although Beck “in principle” saw noobjection to the expulsion of the minority Germans (Volksdeutschen), he refused,however, “as a first reaction”, to have neutral observers, without ever seriouslytaking up this matter again, whenever it was linked to negotiations. Even asubsequent reference from Kennard to use the roundabout way of involving thePope and the “excellent impression on public opinion abroad” failed to changehis mind.70) Already it was the day, when the Polish government, “in view of the

68) ibid., vol. VII, doc. 48.69) ibid., vol. VII, doc. 37.70) ibid., vol. VII, doc. 335, 365, 372.


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nature of Hitler’s language... in his conversation with Henderson on 25 August”,internally had decided on immediate mobilization.71) Poland had again “developedfor the method of pursuing political aims with violence or threats an unfortunateliking”, which has been in evidence, verifiably so, already since the time of there-forming of the Polish state in 1918 onwards.72)

It was not only the British Ambassador, Henderson, who was singularlyimpressed on learning that Hitler was willing, even yet on 29 August, to negotiatewith the Poles the question of an exchange of populations.73) Obviously, he hadno knowledge that already during the summer of 1939 the Reichsgerman[Reichsdeutschen] men had received the advice to send their women folk andchildren to Germany.

“In the last week of August the [German] Embassy [in Warsaw] was alsoto warn the unemployed or ‘those of whom it may be assumed that they incurspecial danger’ to repatriate. Those who remained were to try to protectthemselves against the persecutions which were regarded as inevitable. Partyfunctionaries and journalists were to seek refuge in the homes of friendlynationals of neutral states.” 74)

Henderson admitted that “we led her [Poland] far up the garden path as it is”75)

and thus, therefore, London had assumed the leadership and responsibility forthis development:

“If war is fated to be, then it will be. But it will be the stupidest of warsand history will say that the world was quite mad...

The Poles will, I believe and fear, get a terrible hammering and I cannotsee what they can definitely gain out of it. To enlarge their frontiers will merelymean trouble, possibly from both sides, in the next generation. I only praythat we shall not regret leading them up the garden path for the satisfaction ofkicking Hitler and his Nazi gangsters in the pants.” 76)

71) ibid., vol. VII, doc. 391.72) E. Kordt, Nicht aus den Akten, p. 285.73) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 455.74) L. de Jong, The German Fifth Column, pp. 148-149.75) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 158: Henderson to Halifax on 22

August 1939.76) ibid., vol. VII, doc. 49: Henderson to Sir O. Sargent on 17 August 1939.


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The Extension of the Blank Cheque on 25 August 1939

After the failure of the British-French-Soviet military talks and the startlingconclusion of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact – it was not an “alliance”,such as the one the Western Powers had hoped to conclude! – an accumulation ofcircumstances happened in Europe, which none of the parties had foreseen. Howdid the leading British politicians, Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, viewthis new situation, and how did they react?

The American Ambassador in London, Kennedy, reported to his Secretary ofState, Hull, on 23 August 1939, on his recent talk with the British Prime Minister,in which Chamberlain had said that there was nothing he could do in getting thePoles to make any concessions, and Kennedy had added these words:

“If the President [of the USA] is contemplating any action for peace itseems to me the place to work is on Beck in Poland, and to make this effectiveit must happen quickly. I see no other possibility.” 1)

Kennedy a few days later:

“Frankly he [Chamberlain] is more worried about getting the Poles to bereasonable than the Germans. He feels there is a great body of public opinionin England, headed probably by Eden and Churchill, who will suggest to thePoles that they give up nothing and that they have Hitler on the run. This, ofcourse, will mean war, but in the meantime he is urging Henderson to keeptelling Hitler that, after all, the Danzig situation is a small item and that whatreally needs to be done is to work out the whole European economic politicalproblem.” 2)

On 24 August Neville Chamberlain admitted in the House of Commons thathe had not as yet tried to get a factual assessment of the German grievances aboutPoland’s treatment of the minority Germans [Volksdeutschen].3) Having put herselfin this position, it would have been vital for Great Britain to have made intensiveefforts at objective mediation of disagreements and to curb all threats (mobilization,malicious press campaigns and suchlike). None of that happened. Neither didChamberlain restrain the British press, having acknowledged that their course ofaction “of course, will mean war”, nor even made the attempt to restrain. On the

1) Foreign Relations of the United States 1939, vol. I, pp. 355-356.2) ibid., p. 392, Kennedy to Hull on 30 August 1939.3) W. Jedrzejewicz, Poland in the British Parliament 1939-1945, vol. I, pp. 152-155; “British Blue

Book”, doc.64.


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contrary! On this memorable 24 August 1939, Chamberlain, for his part, did alsodeliberately give false information to the Members of Parliament in the House ofCommons and, therefore, has once again leaked to the press inflammatory slogans,which “of course, will mean war”. He said in his speech:

“The international position has steadily deteriorated until today we findourselves confronted with the imminent peril of war...

The German press declared that Danzig could not be the subject of anyconference or any compromise and that it must come back to the Reich atonce and unconditionally...

They [the German press] published circumstantial accounts of the allegedill-treatment of Germans living in Poland. Now we have no means of checkingthe accuracy of those stories, but we cannot help being struck by the fact thatthey bear a strong resemblance to similar allegations that were made last yearin respect of the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia...

But I think it will be agreed that, in face of this campaign [of the Germanpress?] declarations by Polish statesmen have shown great calm and self-restraint. The Polish leaders, while they have been firm in their determinationto resist an attack upon their independence, have been unprovocative. Theyhave always been ready, as I am sure they would be ready now, to discussdifferences with the German Government, if they could be sure that thosediscussions would be carried on without threats of force or violence, and withsome confidence that, if agreement were reached, its terms would be respectedafterwards permanently, both in the letter and in the spirit...

In Berlin the announcement [of a German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact]was hailed, with extraordinary cynicism, as a great diplomatic victory whichremoved any danger of war since we and France would no longer be likely tofulfill our obligations to Poland. We felt it our first duty to remove any suchdangerous illusion.” 3)

“The steady deterioration of the international situation” during the past fewmonths did not, however, induce Chamberlain to readjust British policy, ratherhe warned against such “dangerous illusions”. While Chamberlain was exclusivelyquoting the “German press” and equating it with “Berlin”, he concealed from theMembers of Parliament the fact that up to this date Hitler had made no demandfor an immediate “unconditional return of Danzig to the Reich” and, altogether,had shown “considerable calm and restraint”. Whereas Lord Halifax on 24 August1939 in the House of Lords still made a crucial distinction between the “aggressivePolish press” and the “attitude of the Polish government”, Chamberlain no longerrecognized the difference between the German government and the German press,despite the fact that Poland had an equally authoritarian government and that the


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Polish press – even though from a different basic position than that in Germany –was strictly censored. Chamberlain was continuing along the same path when heinformed the Members of Parliament in the House of Commons about militarypreparations in Germany but not, on the other hand, about those in Poland. It wasuntruthful to maintain that the Polish leaders had been unprovocative and hadalways been ready, “as they would be ready now”, “to discuss differences withthe German government”. Certainly! Poland had been willing up to January 1939to hold such discussions – that is, until the British government intervened, whenthey “feared that Poland might draw closer to Germany”.4) The obviousconsequence of the unconditional guarantee, pushed upon the Poles and originallynot even requested, was that from this time on Poland was no longer prepared “todiscuss differences with the German government”! This connection was so obviousthat Chamberlain, having had five months to study it thoroughly, must have beenaware of it on 24 August. That Poland, by the end of March 1939, was refusingunder threat of war all talks with the Reich government, must have been equallyknown to Chamberlain, as well as the fact that the German press reports fromSeptember 1938 about the ill-treatment of the Sudeten Germans were factuallycorrect; this had long since been confirmed by Ambassador extraordinaryRunciman.5)

Falsehoods were bound to lead to further aggravation of the internationalsituation. This all the more, as in his speech Chamberlain had not even consideredhow one could, with the help of political or diplomatic efforts, “patch matters up”again.

On the contrary, he claimed,

“...that the time had come when they [the government] must seek theapproval of Parliament for further measures of defence.” 6)

What did his Foreign Secretary do on this memorable 24 August 1939? LordHalifax had given the Polish Ambassador to understand his clear determinationfor war in such a way that Raczynski, at that time, “was still terrified of such anattempt”. Halifax,

“did not doubt for a moment that any attempt to patch matters up had beenout of the question since the conclusion of the German-Soviet agreement.” 7)

4) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 207; I. Colvin, Vansittart in Office, p. 301.5) “Documents and Materials on the Eve of the Second World War” (Russian), vol. I, 1937-1938,

p. 226 seq.6) W. Jedrzejewicz, op. cit., vol. I, p. 154.7) E. Raczynski, In Allied London, p. 24.


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His Prime Minister had conceded only just previously – without, however,taking up the opportunity – that in Berlin the German-Soviet agreement washailed as a pact removing the danger of war, and that Britain had been asked todo her part for the avoidance of war. However, Halifax believed, according tothe motto:

“My reason shows me no way out but war...”,8)

“that the Poles are not inclined to do this”, although “ it was absolutely essentialfor the Poles to get in touch with the Germans... even if they were not ready todiscuss Danzig, to start a discussion on minorities or some other subject”. In thesame communication, the American Ambassador stated more precisely:

“that England will definitely go to war if Poland starts to fight,” 9)

– but not, therefore, when Poland is being attacked!Considering the fact that the British government had practically driven Hitler

to come to an arrangement with Stalin, so the reaction from Halifax after the 23August illustrates London’s resolve for war quite drastically. In all openness werethe “friendly” diplomats given to understand that from now on everything wasgeared to the “inevitability of war with Germany”. This outlook was altogethercalculated to encourage the Poles, whose “courage and fighting spirit the WesternPowers underated”,10) to renewed provocations. Unofficial, but very influential,circles in Britain stood by Lord Halifax’s side.

The Polish Ambassador in London, Raczynski, told about this:

“Churchill has been telephoning daily, and this evening Lord Lloyd didlikewise. Mr Harcourt Johnstone came to see me, representing the LiberalParty. All these people express concern that the Poles should not weaken orgive in to force; and I have been urging them in return to keep their strangeand sometimes incalculable countrymen on the right lines.” [Raczynski’s “rightlines” meant rejection of every compromise; – see page 23 of his book.] 11)

“Besides Dalton and Harcourt Johnstone, I received telephone calls dailyfrom Churchill, Bracken, Sandys and others, in which the same anxietiesrecurred: would the Prime Minister keep his word to us, and would we ourselvesstand firm as the corner-stone of Britain’s ‘peace front’ on the Continent?

8) Foreign Relations of the United States 1939, vol. I, p. 342. 9) ibid., p. 341, Kennedy to Hull on 23 August 1939.10) E. Raczynski, op. cit., p. 22.11) ibid., p. 20.


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This attitude [i.e. of contempt for the peace policy] was exemplified in theletters, both signed and anonymous, which poured in day after day. In theearly stages of the crisis, they had advised us to bomb Danzig flat or to takeadvantage of the Nazi rally at Tannenberg (which did not in fact take place) todestroy Hitler and his friends with a single well planted bomb.” 12)

And the repercussions?

“During this anxious time I called almost daily on Lord Halifax, whoseconfidence I had gained and who from time to time showed clearly that heshared my own view of the situation [rejection of appeasement], though hefelt obliged to put to me very different arguments evolved by the inner Cabinet.He usually noted down my comments, evidently as ammunition for use inthat forum.” 12)

With the backing of these forces Lord Halifax began during the last days ofpeace a further undertaking, which historians tend to define as “dishonest”.13)

(Cf. the chapter: “The Last Days of Peace”.)Although the British government had for a year been receiving from their

own diplomats a steady flow of warnings concerning Polish obstinacy,14) theyhad never queried their unconditional guarantee in the event of Poland refusingnegotiations. There was only one occasion, when the talks were brought round tothis threat: During the visit of the Polish Foreign Minister in London from 4-6April 1939, when Beck was not prepared to make a pact of mutual assistancewith Rumania, which was to take effect in the case of a German attack againstPoland, as well as an Hungarian attack against Rumania.15) In other words,

“when the British were dissatisfied, as they felt he [Beck] was not givingthe co-operation they felt they must have.” 16)

Thus, the British government was using their guarantee as nothing less than ameans of exerting pressure in order to widen the crisis area.

12) ibid., pp. 24, 23. – The last of the telephone calls regarding this was made typically enough on 3September 1939 at 11 p.m. by Winston Churchill, who said: “From today I am First Lord of theAdmiralty. If you should need me, I am at your disposal at any time”, ibid., p. 30.

13) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 272; D. Hoggan, The Forced War, pp. 605-606.14) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 110: Kennard to Halifax on 16

February 1939.15) Foreign Relations of the United States 1939, vol. I, p. 117: Bullitt to Hull on 6 April 1939.16) ibid., p. 112: Kennedy to Hull on 5 April 1939.


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By 25 August 1939, already months of steadily accumulating tension resultingfrom the attitude of the Poles had passed, and President Roosevelt had by nowaddressed an official note to Warsaw in these words:

“The President expresses the belief that, in the interest of public opinionin the United States, as well as public opinion in other parts of the world, it isin the highest degree important that history should not record, in the eventthat any military crisis results from the Danzig issue, that the first act ofaggression of a military character was brought about by Poland.” 17)

On 23 August Lord Halifax had learnt from the Polish Ambassador in London,Raczynski, that Poland was not going to negotiate, that is to say, he [theAmbassador] “was very sceptical of the value of such action”, as long as “wewere still engaged in the technique of the nerve war”, which might well continuefor some little time yet.18) One day later he heard from Warsaw that the Polishgovernment had taken “very serious military measures involving mobilization ofpractically two-thirds of the Polish army”.18) In spite of this alarming news, theBritish government extended on 25 August, on their own initiative, the guaranteeto Poland to cases of “any action which threatened indirectly the independence”and “threatened the neutrality” of the countries of Belgium, the Netherlands,Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia – naturally only by Germany. A few days before,they had still been prepared to sell Poland, or rather Eastern Poland and,consequently, also the Baltic States, to the USSR; thus, it was not at all a genuineBritish concern to secure the independence or neutrality of these states. Therefore,also this passage in the extended Poland guarantee must be serving another purposethan the one professed. Furthermore, the Treaty carried the obligation not toconclude a separate armistice or peace – a clause that until now was only customaryin treaties between warring parties.

Novel in this agreement of 25 August was the fact that Chamberlain and Halifaxwere promising Britain’s unconditional support also in the case of an “indirectthreat” without, however, clarifying in the published text the precise meaning ofthis. In the supplementary Secret Protocol, however, Poland had it confirmed thatthis was directed at the “Free City” of Danzig.

“Hitler could not know of it, and assumed that Britain would not opposethe return of Danzig to Germany. Beck knew of it, and was able to refuse todiscuss the future of Danzig with Germany, knowing that a German move toseize the Free City would be followed by British action in support of Poland.

17) ibid., vol. I, p. 211: Biddle to Beck 11 August 1939.18) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 206, 227.


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Beck knew that the Secret Protocol was precise and final: ‘The casecontemplated by Article Two of the Agreement is that of the Free City ofDanzig.’ Even an indirect threat to Danzig would bring the Treaty intooperation.” 19)

Although Great Britain must have realized, at least during the course of thetalks with Moscow, which carried on for months, that Poland feared the USSR,while thinking to be superior to Germany, and though it was further known thatHitler, unlike Stalin, had no intention of annexing Polish land, but had evendeclared himself willing to guarantee the frontiers and the independence of Poland,yet also the extended guarantee remained solely aimed at Germany. Therefore,London was demonstrably not concerned about the independence and the assetsof Poland! Winston Churchill was to admit later:

“We ourselves have never guaranteed any particular frontier line toPoland.” 20)

“We had not gone to war for any particular frontier line…” 21)

The statement made by Lord Halifax (23 August 1939), in which he called“any attempt to patch matters up” as being “out of the question”,22) manifestsclearly a desire for war serving British interests, not a desire for service helpingPoland.

What has decisively contributed to this British desire for war were thesuggestive hints from members of the German Resistance. Through the secretcontacts, already established in the year 1934-35, among members from GermanMinistries (Goerdeler, Erich and Theo Kordt, State Secretary von Weizsäckerand others), who, for their part, had already been arranging conspiracy plans withofficers from the Armed Forces and figures from the German Economy andAdministration sphere and British politicians (Churchill, Vansittart, Halifax), wasthe British leadership reinforced in their belief that “firm language”, adetermination for war and, at any rate, war itself would bring down the “Hitler-Regime” by a revolution from within Germany.23) It is also a contributory factor,in that Chamberlain, attacked by many circles in Britain and in the USA, believing

19) M. Gilbert, R. Gott, The Appeasers, p. 261. Cf. the draft treaty of 10 August 1939 in Documentson British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VI, doc. 613, particularly article 3, which also holds“economic penetration” to be a “menace to the independence of Poland”.

20) E.J. Rozek, Allied Wartime Diplomacy, p. 205: Churchill on 22 February 1944.21) “Correspondence between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill during the War 1941-1945” (Russian),

vol. I, p. 193: Churchill to Stalin on 1 February 1944.22) E. Raczynski, op. cit., p. 24.23) I. Colvin, op. cit., pp. 125-126, 135, 210, 234-237, 281, 315, 331 seq.


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himself to be facing the downfall of his premiership, considered the now openingpossibility of an easy victory over Germany and went along with war.

Only when looking at it from these viewpoints, could the Poles, too, becomeentrapped by the delusion that within a few days of the outbreak of war theywould be marching into Berlin, and that the Soviet forces, because of the expectedrapid German collapse, would not have enough time to cross the East Polishfrontier. But, on the other hand, these illusions prove that one was aware in London,Washington and Warsaw, just how much the decision “war or peace” was in one’sown hands.

The Annihilation of Germany as a War Aim

Britain, the “protector of small nations”, had been trying, already from spring1939 onwards, to coordinate with guarantees, false reports spreading alarm,probings and encouragements the resolve of the small nations, in a manner thatwas bound to increase the insecurity and dangers. Why did Paris and London, forthe sake of joining in with Moscow, virtually offer the Baltic and East Poland asa prize to Stalin? Halifax did “fully appreciate the disadvantages and risks ofallowing Soviet troops on Polish soil”.1) The unilateral declaration of war onGermany in the course of the Poland campaign, which had already been decidedon in a secret supplementary clause of the Anglo-Polish Agreement [of MutualAssistance] showed that it was not about ethical principles. The later stance ofthe British government, in particular their joining forces, militarily, with the SovietUnion and the refusal to face up to Stalin at the conferences of Moscow, Teheran,Yalta and Potsdam, amplified further the extent of this moral uprooting. One onlyneeds to compare the scale of the unopposed transference to the Soviets by theWestern Allies (absolute sole domination over all of Eastern Europe and theBalkans, participation in controlling the Mediterranean and the Near East) withthat of Danzig’s desire of returning to the German Reich, which was used bythese same Powers as an opportunity to a Second World War!

Despite this background, Lord Halifax professed to be fighting for humanrights, for peace, for ideal principles, and he stated on the BBC-London on 7November 1939:

“The new world that Britain is trying to make come true would bring about

1) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 91.


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cooperation among all nations, based on equality, on self-respect and ontolerance of the human race. Britain would have to try everything within hermeans to combine the necessary revisions in a continuously changing worldwith safeguarding against upsetting the general peace by use of force.” 2)

It is exactly the application of these principles that he refused to Germany.“Justice”, “equality”, “self-respect” was called in London that which served the“European balance”, ergo, British power interests. A comparison between thewar aims, as proclaimed later, and the facts comes automatically to mind. Nosooner had it been openly stated that going to war against Germany was preciselybecause of her style of government, than it was laid down in the Atlantic Charterthat “all peoples” could choose the form of government under which they wouldlive. Every postulate drawn up during the Allied War Conferences was disregardedwhen matters concerned Germany, but also Poland and the other nations of EasternEurope.

Vansittart, the Chief Diplomatic Advisor to the Foreign Secretary, declared toa member of the German resistance on 31 August 1939, thus the day before thestart of the Poland campaign, “trembling with excitement”:

“Britain will be fighting this war to the outmost, and like Samson in theBible, we will tear down the pillars of the palace and bury all underneath that...

A timely ending of the war [this is likely to be an intended misprint – itreads in German ‘Kriegsabbruch’ instead of ‘Kriegsausbruch’ – which,however, does not make any sense either in this played-down form, and whichhas to be: ‘Kriegsausbruch’ = outbreak of the war], though it might mean, it istrue, the death of thousands, it would not mean the death of millions.” 3)

Winston Churchill admitted in November 1939, a few days after Belgium andthe Netherlands had made mediation proposals, on the British radio:

“This war is a British war and its aim is the destruction of Germany.” 4)

Not the destruction of National Socialism! Of course, Churchill did not fail toproclaim the destruction of “Nazi tyranny”:

“This is not a question of fighting for Danzig or fighting for Poland. Weare fighting to save a whole world from the pestilence of Nazi tyranny and indefence of all that is most sacred to man.” 5)

2) S. Hedin, Amerika im Kampf der Kontinente, p. 175.3) E. Kordt, Nicht aus den Akten, p. 338.4) H. Grimm, Warum – Woher – Aber Wohin? pp. 350, 441; S. Hedin, op. cit.5) J.F.C. Fuller, The Second World War 1939-1945, pp. 26-27.


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If Hitler had set himself as the target of his policy to liberate “the wholeworld” from the “pestilence of British tyranny” and the “defence of all that ismost sacred to man”, what kind of accusations would have been levelled at him?

The British Field Marshal, Lord Milne, warned a few weeks after the beginningof the war

“against the dangerous theory that we are not fighting the German people.The war in Poland is typical of the inborn brutality of the German Nation onthe whole. War is war… I do hope that our striking is tough, manifold andabsolutely merciless.” 6)

As a “peace-loving politician”, Prime Minister Chamberlain made a rathercurious admission in a letter of October 1939:

“In 3 days last week I had 2,450 letters, and 1,860 of them were ‘stop thewar’ in one form or another...

I was, I confess, anxious when I read Hitler’s clever speech [Hitler’s peaceoffer after the Poland campaign], and especially when the first American reactionwas reported that he had made a very attractive series of proposals...” 7)

Just how much the British government was at pains to sabotage everypossibility for peace, in pursuit of their war aims, is also clearly shown, amongother things, by the reaction to the trip to Europe made by the American Under-Secretary of State, Sumner Welles, in February-March 1940. The AmericanSecretary of State Cordell Hull wrote about this:

“The rumors [about the mission of Sumner Welles in Europe] filled theAllies and small neutrals with dismay lest the President, on Welles’ return,should make a move for peace. Accordingly, on March 16 [1940] , Mr.Roosevelt broadcast from the White House to dispel these fears. [Along thesame lines,] I had made it clear to the press. Before leaving Rome, Wellesissued a press statement that he had not received or conveyed any peaceproposals. British Ambassador Lothian came on March 22 [1940] to thankthe President and me for what he called the prompt way in which ourGovernment had acted to check and dispel the spread of the ‘peace at anyprice’ sentiment based on all sorts of rumors about what Welles might do inEurope to bring about a negotiated peace, which would be the equivalent of aGerman victory.

He said that efforts directed towards bringing about a negotiated peacemight injure the British and French war situation.” 8)

6) E.J. Reichenberger, Wider Willkür und Machtrausch, p. 535.7) K. Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, p. 424.8) C. Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, pp. 739-740.


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Duff Cooper, First Lord of the Admiralty and Minister for Economic Warfare,stated at the St. George’s celebration on 25 April 1940, when toasting England:

“The coming peace-treaty must be much harsher and more merciless thanVersailles. We can make no distinction between Hitler and the German Nation.After victory we must not allow ourselves to be moved by the claims of theGermans that only a few, only the members of the Hitler regime, committedthe crimes. We must take Hitler at his word that he is the German Nation.” 9)

Lord Vansittart, Chief Diplomatic Advisor to the Foreign Office, 1941:

“Hitler is no accident. He is the natural and continuous product of a breedwhich from the dawn of history has been predatory and bellicose...

By the grace of God and for the salvation of man, we shall rescue the earthfrom Germany and Germany from herself.” 10)

The tenor of his radio talks on the BBC in 1941:

“Violence and fraud, fraud and violence: this is the old German gospel.The Germans have never pledged their word without breaking it, they havenever entered into an agreement without discrediting it, they have not touchedan international law of loyalty without having besmirched it. For generationsthey have destroyed all and every trust among the people.” 11)

Winston Churchill in the House of Commons on 15 February 1942:

“This [bringing of the United States into the war] is what I dreamed of,aimed at and worked for, and now it has come to pass.” 12)

In a letter to Stalin dated 24 January 1944:

“We never thought of making a separate peace even in the year when wewere all alone and could easily have made one without serious loss to theBritish Empire and largely at your [Stalin’s] expense. Why should we think ofit now, when our triple fortunes are marching forward to victory?” 13)

9) E.J. Reichenberger, op. cit., pp. 114-115.10) R. Vansittart, Black Record, p. 14 seq.11) H. Lutz, Verbrechervolk im Herzen Europas? p. 4.12) E. Hughes, Winston Churchill – British Bulldog – His Career in War and Peace, p. 203.13) “Correspondence between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill during the War 1941 -1945” (Russian),

vol. I, p. 189.


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Russell Grenfell wrote on Churchill’s war aims and thereby about those ofGreat Britain:

“What was left as a war object for Mr. Churchill? There [They] were ourprevious friends, the extirpation of Nazi tyranny and Prussian militarism...

The tyranny, as such, was not oppressing the British people. That beingso, what business was it of theirs if the Germans liked to live under a tyrannicalform of Government? Did not the Atlantic Charter declare that the British‘respected the right of all peoples to choose the form of Government underwhich they will live’? Therefore, if the Germans did not choose to throw offtheir Nazi tyranny for themselves, why should a lot of Englishmen have to diein throwing it off for them?

Assuming, however, that the forcible suppression of tyrannies in foreigncountries was a British duty, how came it that another tyranny was made apartner of the British in that process? The Communist tyranny in Russia wasworse than the Nazi tyranny in Germany; the general condition of the Russianpeople was far inferior to that of the Germans; slave labour in Russia was ona gigantic scale compared to anything of the sort in Germany...

Yet Mr. Churchill hailed Russia as a most welcome ally when she wasbrought into the war. One tyrant to help beat another. Clearly, tyranny of itselfwas no aim of Mr. Churchill’s to destroy. He did not even show much interestin the overthrow of Nazi tyranny itself when a prospect of achieving it wasbrought to his notice [with the help of the German resistance] …

Mr. Churchill’s threat to extirpate Nazi tyranny [did not] convince theGermans that such tyranny was bad for them. On the contrary, they would regardit as so successful that Germany’s foes were determined to destroy it.” 14)

What was it that Winston Churchill said in his memoirs, after the war hadended, about his own and his Allies’ blind-rage objectives?

“My principal reason for opposing, as I always did, an alternative statementon peace terms, which was so often urged, was that a statement of the actualconditions on which the three great Allies would have insisted, and wouldhave been forced by public opinion to insist, would have been far morerepulsive to any German peace movement than the general expression‘unconditional surrender’. I remember several attempts being made to draftpeace conditions which would satisfy the wrath of the conquerors againstGermany. They looked so terrible when set forth on paper, and so far exceededwhat was in fact done, that their publication would only have stimulatedGerman resistance. They had in fact only to be written out to be withdrawn.” 15)

14) R. Grenfell, Unconditional Hatred, pp. 98-99,135.15) W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. IV, book II, “Africa Redeemed”, p. 552.


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It was from England that for the first time the annihilation of a people wasannounced as a war object. At that time in Germany there was no programme forthe “final solution of the Jewish question” and no programme “for the annihilationof the Polish people”. Furthermore, no German speakers or Statesmen have everput forward the destruction of Britain or any other nation as a war aim, or evenhinted that this would be their wish. For a state of affairs, not directly affectingBritish interests, Great Britain declared war on Germany, demanded herannihilation and did everything possible for widening and brutalizing the war.

Any historian, dealing with the background to the dividing-up of Germany,would have to admit that the plans for the partition of Germany had been already“discussed in politics and in the media long before the diplomatic considerationsattended to these plans”. The resulting notions were supporting and recommendinga “permanent weakening of German principal power in Central Europe”.16) Mr.Eduard Benes, immediately after his resignation as President of Czecho-Slovakiain October 1938, went so far as to suggest that a minimum of 800,000 to 1 millionSudeten Germans, mainly the intellectual classes and the bourgeoisie, should bedriven from their homeland.17)

Germany was no longer to be allowed to lay claims to any legal title ofinternational law. Churchill interpreted this goal thus:

“By ‘unconditional surrender’ I mean that the Germans have no rights toany particular form of treatment. For instance, the Atlantic Charter would notapply to them as a matter of right.

There will be, for instance, no question of the Atlantic Charter applying toGermany as a matter of right and barring territorial transferences or adjustmentsin enemy countries.” 18)

Three post-war media items from Britain are given as an example of how thispolicy from that time is smugly upheld and to this day [1965] is still foundpraiseworthy:

Lord Beaverbrook’s Sunday Express from 23 March 1958:

“One has to remember that the last war was aimed at destroying Germany.”19)

British historian A.J.P. Taylor, also in the Sunday Express, in October 1957:

16) E. Deuerlein, Die Einheit Deutschlands, p. 141.17) Das östliche Deutschland – Ein Handbuch, p. 532.18) W. Churchill, op. cit., vol. IV, book II, “Africa Redeemed”, p. 552, 553; – Churchill in the House

of Commons on 22 February 1944 (Italics in the original).19) G. Kass, England und Deutschland von 1900-1958, p. 97.


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“The Germans certainly would not like the partition [of their country], butit is ‘great’ for all the others. Britain has waged two wars against Germany,triggered off by different motives. Fundamentally it was always about thesame: there are too many Germans and Germany is too strong. If one allowsall Germans to unite, they will overshadow Europe. Now a solution is handedto us on a plate, for which we should be grateful; instead of that we declarethat Germany must be reunified.” 20)

The same historian, A.J.P. Taylor, “who is one of the most violent German-haters”,21) gave in the spring of 1965 a series of lectures on BBC television, in thecourse of which he conducted “a general attack against lending any British supportfor the reunification of Germany” 21) and stated:

“The British people are not interested in reunifying Germany. On thecontrary. The large majority is delighted about the happy chance that hasdivided Germany and has deprived her of all her power... Wilson’s [PrimeMinister 1965 and Leader of the Labour Party] strongest supporters are alsothose most opposed to German reunification.” 21)

The United States of America

“Roosevelt and the ‘New Deal’ did a lot of good repair work, but theyhave not solved our problem, any more than private industry has. We areashamed to say, but the awful truth remains that our problem was solvedtemporarily only by the timely aid of the biggest of all evil: war. Does ourfaulty memory remember that at the outbreak of the Second World War theDepression had not gone? At that time our output had only reached the levelof 1929, we still had eight million unemployed, our national income was,according to 1939 prices, still ten billion dollars less than it was in the yearwhen the stockmarket crashed and the Depression started.” 1)

This is the sum total of experiences from the Roosevelt admirer and journalistWilliam Shirer about the politics of Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’, proclaimed in 1933,those economic-political steering measures of the US government, designed toovercome the economical slump in the USA. President F.D. Roosevelt, however,

20) ibid., p. 109.21) Frankfurter Allgemeine, 15 March 1965, p. 3. 1) E.J. Reichenberger, Wider Willkür und Machtrausch, p. 334.


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managed to avert the domestic political crises threatening him, what is more withmeasures, which are no credit to American democracy. The details of his warpolicy are no longer any secret; they can be read in any well documented historicalwork. Here only a short summary can demonstrate the basic outline of his foreignpolicy in the decisive years up to the outbreak of war.

It all seemed quite harmless in the beginning:

“Since 1933 he [Hitler] had been caustically criticized in the American press.Some of the dispatches from American representatives in Berlin confirmed

the dark suspicions of pessimistic American newspapers.From 1933 to 1939 multitudes of Americans were being slowly conditioned

for war along some foreign frontier...As Hitler rearmed Germany ... large numbers of persons in this hemisphere

began to feel that his bid for power was a menace to them as well as to hisEuropean neighbours.” 2)

As an example of what the “dispatches from American representatives inBerlin” looked like in those early days already, one only has to read the report of21 April 1934 by the Acting Commercial Attaché, Douglas Miller, about thesituation in Germany:

“The fundamental purpose of the Nazis is to secure a greater share of theworld’s future for the Germans, the expansion of German territory and growthof the German race until it constitutes the largest and most powerful nation inthe world, and ultimately, according to some Nazi leaders, until it dominatesthe entire globe.” 3)

For the sake of historical truth it should be noted that such statements by“some NS-leaders” had never been made.

The press, but especially the financial circles, disapproved from the outsetof Hitler’s economic success, particularly since they could not – as stated –surmount their own economic crisis. The point of contact between Hitler’ssuccess and the interests of the United States was the fact that 40% of Germany’sforeign debt, approximately $1.8 billion, was based on American credits, whichwere raised during the time of the Weimar Republic, and repayment was to bemade from now on according to guidelines that would not prevent the economicrecovery of Germany. Hitler was determined to remove the financial andeconomic pressure from abroad, fully prepared and willing, however, to honourall German loans and commercial debts. The progress made, in comparison

2) C. Tansill, Back Door to War, pp. VII-VIII, p. 40.3) Department of State, Peace and War – United States Foreign Policy 1931-1941, p. 15.


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with the economic dependence of the Weimar Republic, is exemplified in a reportpublished in the Commercial and Financial Chronicle about the Dawes Plan of1924:

“Nothing like the proposed procedure is to be found in history. Germanyis to be taken over and administered in the same way as a corporation nolonger able to meet its obligations is taken over by the law and transferred tothe hands of the bankruptcy commissioners…

In reality a foreign control of internal affairs has been imposed such asnever before existed either in our times or in the past…

Never before has it been proposed to take such complete possession of thewealth of a nation.” 4)

Up to now had the Versailles reparation question and the parallel-trackAmerican loan policy (cf. the “Dawes” and “Young” plans of 1924 and 1929respectively) been focused one-sidedly on the political and economic interests ofthe victors. F.D. Roosevelt in June 1933 was still convinced that he could continuein the same way, disregarding as radically as had been done up to now the vitalinterests of Germany and of other European states in favour of his own economicinterests. He torpedoed the World Economic Conference, which assembled inLondon on 12 June 1933, with his refusal to re-establish the gold standard as ameasure of international exchange value and declined to discuss the internationalmonetary problems arising from the slump, the reparations policy and the newpolitical situation in Germany. The questions which needed to be faced, of creditpolicy, price levels, limitation of currency fluctuations, exchange control, tariffs,quotas, subsidies and the resumption of foreign lending, remained open. He laidthe blame for the deplorable state of affairs, triggered off by Roosevelt’s handlingof the situation, at the door of the “aggressors”; the more evident this sorry situationwas becoming, the more presumptuous and provoking his actions would become.In order to cripple the economy of these “aggressors”, he immediately madebilateral agreements with the “peace-loving democracies”, and on 31 January1934, entirely on his own authority, he set a new par of exchange between thedollar and gold amounting to only 59.66% of the previous one. With this radicaldevaluation of the American currency the foreign trade of other countries, butespecially that of Germany, was reduced considerably. All in all, Roosevelt’sboycott of the World Economic Conference resulted in the following:

4) M. Sering, Germany under the Dawes Plan, London 1929, p. 64 seq., cited by C. Tansill, op. cit.,p. 30.


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a) German exporting becoming more difficult produced the inevitable strivingfor self-sufficiency;

b) the endeavours for reaching agreements among the European nations (thepolitical accord of the Four Power Pact between Britain, France, Italy and Germanyin July 1933; disarmament conferences, etc.) were largely hindered, or rather,were wrecked;

c) the “free press” of the United States was encouraged to intensify theirantagonistic polemics;

d) the economic recovery of Germany, Italy and Japan, in the face of thedepressive stagnation of the economic situation in the USA, was not apt to changeRoosevelt’s attitude towards those countries. He was constantly searching fornew pretexts to distract the attention of the American people from the economicdisturbances by alarming the population with alleged political dangers fromabroad.

It was no accident that the media in the United States had prepared the groundwell, in the direction as indicated by Roosevelt, and this was attested by foreignpoliticians and diplomats already before 1937. On 11 April 1935 Count Szembek,the former Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at the Foreign Office inWarsaw, noted in his diary a conversation with the American Ambassador, Bullitt:

“(At the end of my talk with Bullit) I expressed the opinion that at thepresent time we were witnessing a worldwide aggressive policy aimed at Hitler,rather more so than any aggressive action on Germany’s part.” 5)

Already on 4 Apri1 1935 Count Szembek had realized

“that all the rumours, which are circulating about the war, always originatefrom the same source, that is to say, from Jewish circles and from Freemasoncircles, and they are spread by the Second [II] and Third [III] International[left-wing Socialist movement].” 5)

In the previous month, on 18 March 1935, the same Count Szembek hadrecorded a comment made by the American Ambassador in Warsaw, Cudahy, inhis diary:

“The Jews and German intellectuals, who have taken refuge there [USA],are swaying American public opinion in a direction that is not favourable toHitler Germany.” 6)

5) J. Szembek, Journal 1933-1939, pp. 60, 58.6) ibid., p. 48.


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Regardless of some possibly justified charges of individual emigrants, it isdifficult to clear the American government of the suspicion of having encouragedthe lies disseminated by their press. It was Roosevelt himself spurring on thepress towards inflaming the American people.

Since the quarantine speech of 5 October 1937 in Chicago, in which Roose-velt recommended that the “aggressors” – of course, only the Germans, Italiansand Japanese – be put in quarantine and that “the reign of terror and internationallawlessness” – a clear reference to the countries mentioned – should be fought,the US President’s policy of war is becoming increasingly evident.

“It was really big talk in a high key. He was far more worried about partyreverses at home than about Japanese movements in Manchuria. An economicrecession in the United States had made it clear that the ballyhoo of New Dealpoliticians had struck some very sour notes that greatly annoyed the ears ofAmerican workers who were out of jobs. The Morgenthau Diaries giveindisputable proof of the deep concern the Administration felt over the widebreak in the economic structure of the nation. […]

The quarantine speech of October 5 had many macabre overtones designedto frighten the American people. It indicated that large portions of the worldwere experiencing a ‘reign of terror,’ and that the ‘landmarks and traditionswhich have marked the progress of civilization toward a condition of law,order and justice’ were being ‘wiped away’. ‘Innocent peoples and nations’were being ‘cruelly sacrificed to a greed for power and supremacy’ whichwas ‘devoid of all sense of justice and humane consideration’. If this sadcondition of affairs existed in other parts of the world it was vain for anyoneto ‘imagine that America will escape, that it may expect mercy, that this WesternHemisphere will not be attacked, and that it will continue tranquilly andpeacefully to carry on the ethics and the arts of civilization’.” 7)

Here then we already have those inflammatory phrases meant usually to smooththe way to war. The American press, although differing in their reaction to therequest for “collective pressure”, was, nevertheless, united in acknowledging thatPresident F.D. Roosevelt had given his first crusader speech that would long beremembered. Leading authorities with expert knowledge of Roosevelt andcollaborators of Roosevelt describe this quarantine speech a “milestone in theforeign policy of the United States”.8) This “first drum roll in the democraticorchestra” 9) was produced at a time when from the German side no territorialreadjustment had been demanded and further, when no European country felt

7) C. Tansill, op. cit., pp. 476-477.8) S.J. Rosenmann, Working with Roosevelt, p. 161.9) E. Ludwig, Roosevelt, Studie über Glück und Macht, p. 242.


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threatened by Germany – whereas Roosevelt and his advisers were deeplyconcerned about the economic recession and unemployment at home, having cometo realize that they “were at the end of their improvisation”.10)

In January 1938 Roosevelt intimated that in order to solve the economic crisishe wanted to concentrate government expenditure policy on the building ofbattleships.11)

In a special message from 28 January 1938, Roosevelt recommended toCongress the strengthening of the national defences, in view of the armament ofother nations increasing “at an unprecedented and alarming rate”.

“The President said that ‘adequate defence’ meant that for the protectionnot only of our coast but also of our communities far removed from the coast,we must keep any potential enemy many hundreds of miles away from ourcontinental limits. We could not assume, he stated, that our defence would belimited to one ocean and one coast and that the others would certainly besafe.” 12)

At the beginning of February 1938, Roosevelt wrote, in a private letter to theinfluential British politician, Lord Elibank, that with heart and soul he was workingtowards

“training the American public to join the crusade against Hitler.” 13)

The attachment of Austria to the Reich on 11 March 1938, having been notedby Secretary of State, Hull, without expressing concern and without “any criticalor even disapproving attitude”, was seen a few days later – possibly because “thePresident himself had ‘intervened personally’ ”, in the opinion of the GermanAmbassador in the USA, Dieckhoff – as a “breach of treaty, as militarism, asrape”.14) The unwarranted Czech mobilization of 20 May 1938 – and in its wakethe Sudeten crisis – was aggravated by Roosevelt at the end of June 1938 with hispublic announcement to withdraw the reinforced US-fleet from the Pacific inorder to concentrate it in the Atlantic.

“This was plain enough and was also understood in London as a furthercall to make ready for war.” 15)

10) C.A. Beard, American Foreign Policy in the Making 1932-1940, p. 178.11) J.T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth, p. 174.12) Department of [US] State, op. cit., pp. 52-53.13) Lord Elibank in Contemporary Review, June 1955, “Franklin Roosevelt, Friend of Britain”.14) C. Tansill, op. cit., p. 383.15) H. Sündermann, Die Pioniere und die Ahnungslosen, p. 150.


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In August 1938 Roosevelt gave a speech in Canada, agitating again:

“The Dominion of Canada is part of the sisterhood of the British Empire.I give to you assurance that the people of the United States will not stand idlyby if domination of Canadian soil is threatened by any other Empire.” 16)

As he had already divided the world into “peace loving democracies” and“total” or “totalitarian states”, it thus meant that the dangers of aggressive actionthreatening the American continent, repeatedly suggested to the Americansubconscious in those terms, could only refer to Germany and Japan.

At the beginning of September 1938, President Roosevelt had his LondonAmbassador Kennedy inform the British Prime Minister that whatever courseChamberlain would adopt, the United States would think right.16) Kennedy assuredthe British Foreign Secretary that – in the event that Great Britain was drawn intoan European war –

“the history of the last war would be repeated, leading a good deal morerapidly than in the last war to American intervention…

This amounted to a far-reaching blank cheque and Chamberlain undoubt-edly had it in mind during the Munich crisis. I [Tansill] was able to discoverin the State Department archives, however, no evidence of any real pressureupon the Prime Minister in favour of peace at any price.” 17)

The reasons for Roosevelt’s antipathy towards Germany can hardly beexplained with the “Jewish question”, given that the influential circles in theUSA were fully aware that the treatment of the Jews in Poland was considerablyworse than in Germany. The protests against Poland’s anti-Jewish measures, whichup to the outbreak of war had been addressed to Congress in Washington, farexceeded the complaints made about anti-Jewish measures against the Reich,when expressed in figures and regards content.18) It is equally unlikely thatRoosevelt’s underlying reasoning was based on ethical or ideological motives,considering that he had tried already early on to join forces with Stalin, whogoverned in a far more dictatorial way than Hitler ever did, had not been electedby the people and who was actually demanding “to get rid of all religions anddemocracies”, whereas Roosevelt accused National Socialism, altogether unjustly,of pursuing precisely this goal.19)

16) E.E. Robinson, The Roosevelt Leadership 1933-1945, p. 241.17) C. Tansill, op. cit., pp. 407, 427-428.18) Foreign Relations of the United States 1938, vol. II, p. 647 seq.; D. Hoggan, The Forced War, p. 101;

H. Sündermann, op. cit., p. 164 seq.19) F.D. RooseveIt, Amerika und Deutschland 1936-1945, p. 39: Radio speech by Roosevelt on 15


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Just as, for example, a conference of Pan-American states debating the cedingto the USA of a frontier zone in Mexico would be of absolutely no concern toGermany, so, by the same token, the Munich conference had nothing whatever todo with the United States of America. Regardless of this fact, the AmericanPresident interfered in the affairs of another, far distant, continent. Roosevelt,who in September 1938, having a bad cold, already “wanted to kill Hitler andamputate the nose”,20) and who then – perhaps the better to manage this? – appealedto Hitler to agree to an international conference in some neutral spot, but with noinvolvement by the USA,20) had, after the Munich conference,

“... deep misgivings as to Chamberlain’s appeasement policy and its impli-cations. He told... darkly that he suspected Britain and France might offerTrinidad and Martinique to Hitler to keep him satisfied – and if they did hewould send the fleet to take both islands.” 20)

In order to lend some real weight to this agitation for war, Roosevelt sent hisAmbassador Bullitt to Europe with instructions concerning this matter and givinghim extensive power. At the same time he had his close friend and adviser, BernardM. Baruch, return to Washington from Europe, and through him “informed” thepress on a “real and direct German threat to South America”, a theme that wasimmediately taken up by Churchill for his own agitating.21) Bullitt, on the otherhand, declared to the Polish Ambassador in Washington, Jerzy Potocki, on 19November 1938:

“It would be in accordance with the wishes of the democratic States thatan armed conflict in the East should break out between the Reich and Russia.

When I asked whether the United States would participate in a war of thiskind, he [Bullitt] replied: ‘Without the slightest doubt, but only if Britain andFrance make the first move!’ Feeling in the United States, so he told me, wasrunning so high against Nazism and Hitlerism that already to-day a psychosiswas observable amongst Americans, similar to that which prevailed just beforeAmerica declared war on Germany in 1917...

Mr. Bullitt then mentioned the question of the Ukraine and Germany’sintentions there. He confirmed that Germany had a complete staff of Ukrainianofficials who were to take over the future government of the Ukraine andfound an independent Ukranian State under German influence. ‘A Ukraine ofthis type’, Mr. Bullitt continued, ‘would, of course, be very dangerous for youas it would directly influence the Ukrainians in Eastern Poland’…” 22)

March 1941; p. 67: Roosevelt speaking to Congress on 6 January 1942.20) J. Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox, pp. 387-388.21) The Times, London, 15 October 1938, cited by: H. Sündermann, op. cit., p. 155.22) “German White Book” No. 3, doc. 4: Potocki to Warsaw on 21 November 1938.


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Even Potocki appeared to have been rather surprised by these remarks, for heended his report to Warsaw with the words:

“Mr. Bullitt was not too well-informed about the situation in Eastern Europeand this part of his conversation was somewhat superficial.” 22)

A similar kind of bolstering to fight with Germany could be read in the notewritten by the League of Nations High Commissioner in Danzig, Carl J.Burckhardt. Burckhardt reported to the General Secretary of the League of Nations,Avenol, on 2 December 1938, on a talk with the American Ambassador in Warsaw,Biddle:

“He – Biddle – was telling me with a strange satisfaction that the Poleswere ready to go to war over Danzig. They would meet the motorized powerof the German army with their manoeuvrability. ‘In April’, he declared, ‘therewill be a new crisis; not since the Lusitania was torpedoed has there been inAmerica such religious hatred against Germany as there is today! Chamberlainand Daladier will be swept away by public opinion. This is a holy War’.” 23)

“Already on 1 December the former Acting US Secretary of War announcedat an American military convention that 10,000 factories had received their‘final war production programme’; a similar announcement was made onthe same day in the House of Commons in Britain with regards to Britishindustry.” 24)

On 14 November 1938, the American Ambassador in Berlin, Hugh Wilson,was called back to Washington by Roosevelt to make a report and for discussions.Wilson did not return to his post, so that Roosevelt’s step was practicallytantamount to breaking off diplomatic relations with Germany.

On 6 December 1938, Roosevelt showed his disapproval openly to the recentlysigned German-French Peace and Friendship Pact.25) He was thus in good companywith Stalin, whose ideological motives, as part of his policy, were to underminepeace and friendship among other nations. On 4 January 1939 – two and a halfmonths before Hitler’s entry into Prague! – Roosevelt requested of Congress arevision of the neutrality legislation, approval for almost 1.3 billion dollars forarmaments26), and he turned loose a provocative and insulting warning toGermany.27)

23) C.J. Burckhardt, Meine Danziger Mission 1937-1939, p. 225.24) H. Sündermann, op. cit., p. 158, cites The Times, London, 2 December 1938.25) G. Bonnet, Fin d’une Europe, De Munich à la Guerre, p. 40.26) H. Dahms, Roosevelt und der Krieg, p. 25.27) J. Burns, op. cit., p. 389.


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His reasoning:

“All about us rage undeclared wars – military and economic. All about usare threats of new aggression – military and economic. There comes a time inthe affairs of men when they must prepare to defend, not their homes alonebut the tenets of faith and humanity on which their churches, their governmentsand their very civilization are founded. The defence of religion, of democracyand of good faith among nations is all the same fight. To save one we mustnow make up our minds to save all...

God-fearing democracies could not forever let pass, without effectiveprotest, acts of aggression. There are many methods short of war, but strongerand more effective than mere words, of bringing home to aggressor govern-ments the aggregate sentiments of our own people.” 27)

With his statement, “our [American] frontier... is on the Rhine”, he positionedsome more marker flags.28)

“Nevertheless, whether or not Roosevelt actually made the statement, hemost certainly did believe that America’s eastern frontier was on the Rhineand it was on this belief that he acted.” 29)

This statement was merely repeating the ideas expressed to Congress on 28January 1938, which he was to formulate anew at the beginning of February 1939in the following words:

“In the event of war, the frontier of the United States would be in France.”30)

The US Ambassador extraordinary, Bullitt, while denying that Roosevelt hadstated that America’s frontier lay on the Rhine, did declare, however,

“that the President had most certainly said that he was sending aeroplanesto France, for the French army was the first defence line of the United States.”31)

In the same report of the Polish Ambassador in Paris, Lukasiewicz, fromFebruary 1939, the view of Roosevelt is expressed,

“that the recent successes of the Rome-Berlin axis [February 1939!], whichundermine both the prestige and the authority of France and Britain as imperial

28) H. E. Barnes, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, p. 203.29) R. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 125.30) G. Bonnet, op. cit., p. 106 (German ed., p. 171).31) “German White Book” No. 3, doc. 9.


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powers, threaten almost directly the real interests of the United States.” 31)

There is talk not only of the “immensely important means of coercion” directedtowards Britain, which would “cause Britain to withdraw from any policy ofcompromise at France’s expense”, but also of equally effective means of coercion,principally of an economic nature, with regards to Germany and Italy, “whichcould be used without any internal political resistance”. This feasible pressurebeing considered

“could in great measure prevent the outbreak of an armed conflict or avoidthe development of the European situation in a direction which would beundesirable from the point of view of Washington.” 31)

The first part of this sentence must have been written purely to put it on file,since “the development of the situation in Europe” was to run, in accordancewith the wishes of the US President, in the direction that

“an armed conflict in the East should break out between the Reich andRussia.” 22)

The watchword of the US government already declared that the Americanfrontier has to be “on the Rhine”,32) the British frontier on the Vistula.33) It is notsurprising, therefore, that the Polish government, by mid-January 1939, “possiblyalso influenced by United States diplomacy, had finally decided to refuse theReich government” and, as of now, liked to portray “any entering into the Danzigand motor-road proposals as being equivalent to Poland loosing her independenceand accepting a satellite role”.34) The US Ambassador in London, Kennedy, wouldstate later, when looking back in December 1945:

“neither the French nor the British would have made Poland a cause ofwar if it had not been for the constant needling from Washington....” 35)

The reports of 12 and 16 January 1939 by the Polish Ambassador in Washing-ton, Potocki, describe the contents of the talks with leading American politicians

32) J. Burns, op. cit., p. 400.33) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, vol. II, p. 102: The French Prime

Minister, Daladier, commenting on the British pledge of assistance, stated in April 1939: “TheBritish are now prepared to regard their frontiers to be no longer on the Rhine but on the Vistula.”

34) H. Roos, Polen und Europa, p. 395.35) C. Tansill, op. cit., p. 556 ; W. Millis, The Forrestal Diaries, p. 121 seq.


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and diplomats.36)

Five characteristic features, tracing the unfolding, are mentioned:a) Enlivening of the Foreign Policy by F.D. Roosevelt;b) fierce and unequivocal condemnation of the “totalitarian” states, which is

certainly to mean only Germany, Italy and Japan, not, however, the Soviet Union,Poland, Spain, Portugal, China or any other country;

c) rapid and extensive war preparations;d) pressure on France and Britain – also by referring to the armament statistics

of the United States – to oppose any compromise policy from the “totalitarianstates” and to reject any discussions that had as its object any territorial changes;

e) abandoning the isolationist policy by giving the assurance that, in the eventof war, the USA would actively intervene on the side of France and Britain.

On 12 January 1939, Potocki explained in detail:

“Public opinion in America nowadays expresses itself in an increasinghatred of everything Fascist... Above all, propaganda here is entirely in Jewishhands. Jews own practically 100% of the broadcasting stations, cinemas, pressorgans and periodicals...

The whole situation in this country constitutes an excellent forum for allclasses of public speakers and for refugees from Germany and Czecho-Slovakiawho are not backward in inflaming American public opinion with a torrent ofanti German abuse and vilification...

It is interesting to observe that in this carefully thought-out campaign –which is primarily conducted against National Socialism – no reference at allis made to Soviet Russia. If that country is mentioned, it is referred to in afriendly manner and people are given the impression that Soviet Russia ispart of the democratic group of countries...

Side by side with this propaganda an artificial war-panic is also created.Americans are induced to believe that peace in Europe is hanging by a threadand that war is inevitable. No effort is spared to impress upon the Americanmind that in the event of a world war, the U.S.A. must take an active part in astruggle for freedom and democracy...

The modus operandi was perfectly simple. All Roosevelt had to do wasto stage correctly, on the one hand, the menace of world-war brought about byChancellor Hitler, while on the other hand, a bogey had to be found that wouldgabble about an attack on the U.S.A. by the totalitarian countries. The MunichPact was indeed a godsend to President Roosevelt. He lost no opportunity intranslating it as France’s and England’s capitulation to bellicose Germanmilitarism...

36) The authenticity of the documents in the “German White Book” No. 3 has been established (seep. 107, footnote 90).


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Furthermore, the brutal treatment meted out to the Jews in Germany aswell as the problem of the refugees are both factors which intensify the existinghatred of everything connected with German National Socialism. In thiscampaign of hatred, individual Jewish intellectuals... and other well-knownpersonal friends of Roosevelt have taken a prominent part. All of them wantthe President to become the protagonist of human liberty, religious freedomand the right of free speech. They want the President to punish all anti-Semiticagitation. This particular group of people, who are all in highly-placedAmerican official positions and who are desirous of being representatives of‘true Americanism’, and as ‘Champions of Democracy’ are, in point of fact,linked with international Jewry by ties incapable of being torn asunder. Forinternational Jewry – so intimately concerned with the interests of its ownrace – President Roosevelt’s ‘ideal’ rôle as a champion of human rights wasindeed a godsend. In this way Jewry was able not only to establish a dangerouscentre in the New World for the dissemination of hatred and enmity, but italso succeeded in dividing the world into two warlike camps. The wholeproblem is being tackled in a most mysterious manner. Roosevelt has beengiven the power to enable him to enliven American foreign policy and at thesame time to create huge reserves in armaments for a future war which theJews are deliberately heading for. It is easy for American domestic policy todivert public opinion in this country from an increasing anti-Semitic feeling.This is done by talking of the necessity for defending faith and individualliberty against the menace of Fascism.” 37)

The former League of Nations High Commissioner in Danzig, Carl J.Burckhardt – an observer and expert, by no means German-orientated –commented on this document thus:

“This text could have come from a former German diplomat, [who wouldnot have been, however, so well informed].” 38)

It has to be taken for granted that Mr. Burckhardt had cogent reasons forpublicizing such a comment in the year 1960, since he would well remember, forexample, a piece of advice from the president of the Jewish World Congress,Nahum Goldmann, during the pre-war period:

“Your appeasement manoeuvres in Danzig are harmful. Public protestsagainst conditions in Danzig are essential, because of the general situation ofthe Jewish people as a whole.” 39)

37) “German White Book” No. 3, doc. 6.38) C.J. Burckhardt, op. cit., pp. 253-256.39) ibid., p. 104.


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After all, this suggestion was aiming at intensifying the long-standing disputesin Danzig that were stirred up by similar interest groups.

In February 1939, Ambassador Bullitt declared to his Polish colleague in Paris,Lukasiewicz, that

“the... point of view of official Washington circles lacks all idealism andresults entirely from the necessity of defending the real interests of the UnitedStates…

As far as Britain is concerned, the United States control various and im-mensely important means of coercion. The mere threat to make use of themwould suffice to cause Britain to withdraw from any policy of compromise.”40)

All of these pieces of data are from before the German entry into Prague.Consequently, the motive for this stance could not, therefore, be attributed to theoccupation of Bohemia and Moravia!

After Hitler had occupied Bohemia-Moravia and Mussolini had occupiedAlbania, Roosevelt sent a threatening letter to Chamberlain to the effect thatAmerica would no longer support “the democracies” if they were to keep to theMunich agreements (by this was meant the Peace and Friendship Declarationswith Germany).41)

On 19 March 1939, Lukasiewicz and Bullitt assured the Polish Foreign Ministerthat President Roosevelt would do everything possible to go into action againstGermany.

“Bullitt informed the Poles that he knew Germany hoped to acquire Danzig,and that he was counting on Polish willingness to go to war over the Danzigquestion. He urged Lukasiewicz to present demands to the West for suppliesand other military assistance.” 42)

The Ambassador-Extraordinary of the American President continued to setup the diplomatic war preparations in Paris and London. On 26 March 1939, heurged his colleague in London, Kennedy, to inform Chamberlain that the UnitedStates hoped

“that Great Britain would go to war with Germany if the Danzig disputeproduced an explosion between Germany and Poland.” 43)

40) “German White Book” No. 3, doc. 9.41) J. Béarn in Les Origines Secrètes de la Guerre 1939-45, p. 211 (German ed., p. 164).42) D. Hoggan, The Forced War, p. 308.43) ibid., p. 336.


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How the USA, at the time still doubtful about the British leadership’s deter-mination for war, had thought to lend weight to their “suggestions” to London, isrevealed in the Bullitt and Lukasiewicz secret talks, which were being held at thesame time. Bullitt assured his Polish colleague in Paris “that the United Stateswould be able to exert sufficient pressure to produce a British mobilization at thepeak of the next crisis”.44)

President Roosevelt, who was aware of the intended British guarantee of 31March 1939, had told his Ambassador Kennedy in London that he thought “thestatement excellent” and that “it would have a very great effect”.

“The United States, he thought [Ambassador Kennedy to Halifax], wouldconsider that war was imminent, but the President [Roosevelt] did not thinkthat this would do any harm.” 45)

Roosevelt raised the panic barometer in his land with his many speeches,using them also to keep “war at the centre of all the deliberations” (speeches inWarm Springs on 8 and 9 April, on 14 April in Washington to the GoverningBoard of the Pan-American Union). The secret alarming news sent from Parisby Bullitt and the French Foreign Minister, Bonnet, according to which “theremight be war at any moment”,46) were not designed to produce a reassuringeffect. While Roosevelt declared yet on 14 April that “there is no such thing asencircling... any peaceful nation by other peaceful nations”, he nonethelesscompared the Germans and Italians to the Huns and Vandals and, apart fromanything else, this made it perfectly clear to what degree he himself was activeas the one who was forging this encircling ring. Then later, at the Yalta conferenceon 8 February 1945, Stalin would raise his glass in a toast to Roosevelt andwould describe him, “even though his own country had not been directlythreatened”, as “the foremost maker of the tools with which the worldwidemobilization against Hitler was mounted”.47)

Roosevelt’s intentions became even more obvious when, directly after hisspeech on 14 April 1939, he made an appeal to Hitler and Mussolini, in whichhe suggested that Hitler and Mussolini should give assurances of non-intervention for ten years with regards to thirty-one countries, amongst whichwere even two countries in the Near East under foreign mandate. The UnitedStates would take part in any negotiations resulting from this. None of the

44) ibid., p. 326.45) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 586.46) C. Tansill, op. cit., p. 518.47) Die Jalta Dokumente, p. 225.


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countries mentioned had, up to that date, ever complained to Roosevelt aboutbeing threatened by Germany.

“The President’s denunciation of the dictators as modern ‘Huns andVandals’ was bound to evoke a bitter reply. In order to raise the pitch of theiranger and make their replies so extreme in language that the American publicwould become increasingly war-minded, the President held a press conferenceon April 15 [1939] and took advantage of his gifts as a showman to impresshis audience with the manner in which he had verbally spanked Hitler andMussolini.” 48)

The comment from Bullitt of 11 April 1939 that “France would refuse to joinBritain in taking action to resist Germany if the British Mediterranean Fleet” –according to “a previous promise made to Australia” – “was sent to Singapore”,induced Roosevelt, on 15 April 1939, to order the American fleet “into thePacific”.49) The British Major-General and military historian, J.F.C. Fuller, revealedfurther facts from the sphere of the US secret diplomacy:

“Weigand, the doyen of American journalists in Europe, informs us that,on April 25 1939, he was called to the American Embassy in Paris and told byBullitt: ‘War in Europe has been decided upon. America’, he predicted, ‘wouldbe in the war after Britain and France entered it’.

The statement is corroborated by the White House Papers of Harry Hopkins,in which their editor says that, about this time, Winston Churchill told BernardBaruch: ‘War is coming very soon. We will be in it and you (the United States)will be in it. You (Baruch) will be running the show over there, but I will be onthe sidelines over here’.” 50)

“The so-called ‘cash and carry’ clause (Section 2 of the Neutrality Act of1937) had expired on May 1, 1939”. Since that date the United States of Americawas delivering to Britain and France, completely unobstructed, “all raw materialsof military importance” and armament goods.51) A further decisive step was taken.

On 23 May 1939, the Japanese Prime Minister, Baron Hiranuma, at a secretconference with the adviser for the American Embassy, Eugene H. Doomann,suggested that:

48) C. Tansill, op. cit., p. 520.49) H.E. Barnes, op. cit., p. 205.50) J.F.C. Fuller, The Decisive Battles of the Western World and their influence upon history, vol. III,

p. 375.51) ADAP, vol. VII, doc. 239 footnote.


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“…he might sound out Germany and Italy, if Mr Roosevelt was preparedto approach Britain and France, in order to hold a conference to try to solvethe troubles of Europe. Mr Hull viewed this approach as ‘amazing’, and broughtit to Mr Roosevelt’s personal attention. But a reply was delayed for the betterpart of three months, by which time circumstances had changed, and a greatopportunity which had been neglected was wasted – or evaded.

American preparations for war were proceeding silently and secretly. OnJune 23 1939, a secret barter agreement was made with Britain, ‘a good dealof money’ was spent to buy various war materials; nineteen new merchantships were launched by August 9; contracts were about to be let for one hundredmore; and on August 10 a War Resources Board was created.” 52)

Irrespective of any particular decisions and measures, the propaganda machinecontinued pointing the way to war.

“Regardless of whatever it was that any Axis power was keeping in SouthAmerica, be it in the form of their embassies, firms, airlines, trade and militarymissions, associations, newspapers, publicity agencies – every particular thatcould be found was considered a sign of an impending ‘aggression’, especiallyby Hull, who, by referring to such indications, persuaded the Pan-Americanconference in Lima to make a demonstrative ‘declaration of solidarity of thetwo Americas’.” 53)

In the summer of 1939, F.D. Roosevelt was urging Chamberlain and Daladierto make promises to Poland, regardless of whether these could be fulfilled or not,which found their classical expression in these words, repeatedly told to Kennedyin London, “to put some iron up Chamberlain’s backside”.54) At the same time,Roosevelt was doing everything to persuade Congress to amend the NeutralityAct.

On 28 May 1939, Roosevelt had a conversation with the Czech ex-PresidentBenes at Hyde Park, north of New York. This was recorded by Benes in hismemoirs:

“I think the United States will also have to enter the war in any case.Europe alone cannot win the war against Hitler. And even if the United Statesdoes not enter the fight against Nazism, Nazism will attack the United States.It is necessary not to forget that in Hitler and his companions, the rest of theworld is up against real madmen who are out of their minds and capable ofanything.” 55)

52) H.E. Barnes, op. cit., p. 207.53) H. Dahms, op. cit., p. 24.54) C. Tansill, op. cit., p. 556.55) E. Benes, Memoirs of Dr Eduard Benes, p. 79.


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On 6 July 1939, the Under-Secretary of State in the Polish Foreign Ministry,Count Szembek, summarized the impressions of the Polish Ambassador, CountJerzy Potocki, who had returned from Washington:

“He was dumbfounded, when noticing the atmosphere prevalent in Poland.In comparison with the war-panic which has invaded the West, one gets theimpression that living in our country is like living in a rest-home.

In the West, there are all kinds of elements openly pushing for war: theJews, the big capitalists and the arms merchants. All are presented these dayswith an excellent opportunity: they have found a tinder spot: Danzig, and anation that wants to fight: Poland. They want to do business at our expense.The destruction of our country would leave them cold. But no: as everythingwould need to be rebuilt later, they would be the ones who would gain.” 56)

The former American Secretary of War, James Forrestal, wrote in his diary:

“... if it had not been for Bullitt’s urging on Roosevelt in the summer of1939 that the Germans must be faced down about Poland; neither the Frenchnor the British would have made Poland a cause of war if it had not been forthe constant needling from Washington.” 57)

On 4 August 1939, Roosevelt intervened directly in the negotiations betweenthe Western Military and the Soviets; just in those negotiations, where the outcome,as every politician was bound to realize, would have to result in either war orpeace. Roosevelt indicated to Umansky, the Soviet Ambassador in Washington,who was about to return to Moscow, that the USA saw the European situation inthe same way as Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union. That is why the USAwas in favour of these three states concluding a military alliance in everybody’sinterest. A victory of the Axis Powers in a war in Europe or the Far East wouldaffect the position of the United States as much as it would affect that of theSoviet Union. Roosevelt subsequently had these notions also conveyed in a secretdispatch to Moscow.58)

President Roosevelt even rejected Chamberlain’s more or less non-committalpleading for mediation and arbitration:

“On 23 August 1939, Sir Horace Wilson, acting on Chamberlain’s behalf,saw Kennedy, the American Ambassador. After the conversation, Kennedytelephoned the State Department:‘The British wanted one thing of us and one

56) J. Szembek, op. cit., pp. 475-476.57) W. Millis, op. cit., pp. 121-122.58) Foreign Relations of the United States 1939, vol. I, pp. 293-294.


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thing only, namely that we put pressure on the Poles. They felt that they couldnot, given their obligations, do anything of this sort but that we could.’ PresidentRoosevelt rejected this idea out of hand.” 59)

On 24 August the German Chargé d’Affaires in Washington stated that theAmerican press was doing everything in their power

“to establish Germany’s war guilt unmistakably beforehand, and therebyto propagate the idea of intervention still more strongly among the people.” 60)

On 26 August 1939, the British Ambassador in Washington, Lindsay, reportedon a conversation with Roosevelt, according to which the American President“was delighted at the prospect of a new World War.” 61)

“Roosevelt also promised Lindsay that he would delay German ships underfalse pretenses in a feigned search for arms, so that they could be easily seizedby the British under circumstances which would be arranged with exactitudebetween the American and British authorities. The British Ambassador waspersonally perturbed that the President of one of the important countries couldbe gay and joyful about a tragedy which seemed so destructive of the hopes ofall mankind. He reported that Roosevelt ‘spoke in a tone of almost impishglee and though I may be wrong the whole business gave me the impressionof resembling a school-boy prank’.” 61) + 62)

Roosevelt never did show any consideration or understanding towards eitherGermany or Japan, although both countries wanted to avoid a conflict with theUSA. He rejected every compromise in the European and Asian spheres, that isto say, in those areas which were really of no concern to him! Trying to wreck anypeace proposals being considered by other statesmen, he was pressing for furtheralliance treaties, military pacts and pledges of assistance against Germany.Furthermore, this was already done some years before the war started, in a fashionthat was going too far even for British government circles.63)

There is scarcely any historian, who would dispute that since 1937/1938Roosevelt, by way of his public addresses, his secret diplomacy, his pushing andby exerting his influence on the economy of other nations, had been decisively

59) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 272.60) ADAP, vol. VII, doc. 239.61) D. Hoggan, op. cit., pp. 518-519.62) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 318.63) Viscount Templewood (S. Hoare), Nine Troubled Years, pp. 270-271 (German ed., p. 239);

H. Sündermann, op. cit., p. 148.


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directing primarily Great Britain, France and Poland from afar and had been puttingpressure on them. He bears a crucially large share of the responsibility for theoutbreak, for the widening and spreading and for the brutalization of the SecondWorld War.64)

Following a few examples of Rooseveltian measures from the beginning ofthe European war, recorded chronologically in numerous works:

President Roosevelt rejected all German proposals for mediation:

a) “As is known, Hitler already ended the September 1939-Poland cam-paign with an offer of peace, which he announced at the Reichstag sitting of 6October 1939. I remember this time all the more clearly, as my former chief,Dr. Dietrich, had, before this Reichstag session, sent for the Berlincorrespondents of the American newspapers, acquainted them with the mainconsiderations of the Hitler speech and, almost pleadingly, asked them toremember in particular: ‘This is the hour of President Roosevelt.’

Of course Dietrich did not realize then, just how futile such an appeal wasbound to be, as the secret documents on the Rooseveltian meddling in thepreliminaries of war were as yet not known. All the same, the Dietrich actionwas generally noticed, undoubtedly because it was done with Hitler’s approval.This ‘feeler’ did reach the White House, was even referred to at the President’spress conference – but dismissed by the President with a slight wave of thehand.” 65)

b) On 3 October 1939, Hermann Göring remarked to the American negotiator,W.R. Davis:

“You can assure Mr Roosevelt that if he will undertake mediation, Germanywill agree to an adjustment whereby a new Polish State and a new Czecho-Slovakian independent government would come into being. I agree that theconference should be in Washington.” 66)

Neither Davis – who, after Roosevelt had refused him a personal discussionon his return, wrote a long letter to the President detailing his conferences inBerlin – nor the Reich government ever received an answer.

c) Göring renewed the offer in mid-October 1939, and again at the beginningof 1940, when he had a discussion with the president of the ‘General Motors

64) F.J.P. Veale, Advance to Barbarism, pp. 273-274; C.A. Beard, President Roosevelt and the Comingof the War; F.R. Sanborn, Design for War; W.H. Chamberlin, Amerikas zweiter Kreuzzug; C.Tansill, Back Door to War.

65) H. Sündermann, op. cit., p. 169.66) H. Dahms, op. cit., p. 37; C. Tansill, op. cit., pp. 560-561.


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Overseas Corporation’, J.D. Mooney, and he concluded it by indicating a possiblereshuffle of the Reich government.

d) The overtures made by the former president of the Reichsbank, HjalmarSchacht, were also rejected.67)

e) The contacts established by the Reich Press Chief, Dr. Dietrich, with theForeign correspondent and Chief of the Berlin office of the ‘Associated Press’,L.P. Lochner, remained equally unproductive, as was Roosevelt’s intent.

Roosevelt justified his refusal of mediation with these words:

“He could not come to the fore as mediator without the consent of the twoWestern Powers.” 67)

Roosevelt, knowing about secret agreements, was evidently doubtful fromthe start about the desire for peace on the part of Britain and France; no indicationswere forthcoming from London or Paris to be sounding out chances for peace.The realization of their war aims, namely the annihilation of Germany and theplan of a world government of the “Four Policemen” (USA, Great Britain, theSoviet Union and China) for the post-war period,68) mattered more to him than areasonable programme for world peace.

On 10 January 1941, Roosevelt had sent his trusted adviser, Harry Hopkins,on a secret mission to London. On arrival at No.10 Downing Street, Hopkinsinformed the British War Premier, Winston Churchill, “with gleaming eye andquiet constrained passion”:

“The President is determined that we shall win the war together. Make nomistake about it.

He has sent me here to tell you that at all costs and by all means he willcarry you through, no matter what happens to him – there is nothing that hewill not do so far as he has human power.” 69)

On 15 March 1941, President Roosevelt described his decision for war in anaddress, which was broadcast by radio throughout the world:

“We know that although Prussian autocracy was bad enough, Nazism isfar worse.

Nazi forces are not seeking mere modifications in colonial maps or inminor European boundaries. They openly seek the destruction of all electivesystems of government on every continent – including our own; they seek to

67) H. Dahms, ibid., p. 39.68) W. Churchill, op. cit., vol. V, book II, “Teheran to Rome”, p. 320.69) A.C. Wedemeyer, Wedemeyer Reports! p. 9.


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establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all humanbeings by a handful of individual rulers who have seized power by force…

These modern tyrants find it necessary to their plans to eliminate alldemocracies – eliminate them one by one. The nations of Europe, and indeedwe ourselves, did not appreciate that purpose. We do now…

This decision is the end of any attempts at appeasement in our land; theend of urging as to get along with the dictators; the end of compromise withtyranny and the forces of oppression…

The world has no use for any nation which, because of size or because ofmilitary might, asserts the right to goose-step to world power over other nationsor other races…” 70)

“In effect, the President has declared war already. He has identified theenemy and speaks of victory.” 71)

During the conferences on the Atlantic Charter on 14 August 1941– four monthsbefore the USA entered the war – Roosevelt again stated his preferences forfighting-actions without a declaration of war by revealing to Churchill:

“I may never declare war; I may make war. If I were to ask Congress todeclare war, they might argue about it for three months.” 72)

Roosevelt had the Atlantic Charter – that is to say the proclamation of thealleged war aims – so formulated, already long before the USA entered the war,that on the basis of his power he presented all other nations with an option: Thoseon the side of freedom, democracy and peace – thus in favour of the AtlanticCharter – must follow the Anglo-American policy and fight for the destruction of“Nazism”, that is to say they must support the fight by giving all necessaryassistance. Thus, Roosevelt could tell Congress on 23 August:

“The declaration of principles is so clear cut that it is difficult to oppose inany major particular without automatically admitting a willingness to acceptcompromise with Nazism.” 73)

The “Big Three” – the Soviet government had also signed the Atlantic Charteron 24 September 1941 – were in agreement from the beginning

“that in the practical application of the Atlantic Charter it is unavoidable

70) Documents on American Foreign Relations, vol. III, July 1940-June 1941, p. 35, 36, 40.71) Christian Century, April 1941.72) H.E. Barnes, op. cit., p. 218; A.C. Wedemeyer, op. cit., pp. 6-7.73) J.W. Gantenbein, Documentary Background of World War II 1931-1941, p. 220.


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that the circumstances, necessities and historical characteristics of one or othercountry will have to be taken into account” 74) ,

and that, thanks to this proviso, none of the signatory states needed to abideby the postulates of this war-aims-declaration – which subsequently none of themdid.

On 1 September 1941, the American “Labor Day”, Roosevelt announced:

“We are engaged on a grim and perilous task. Forces of insane violencehave been let loose by Hitler upon this earth. We must do our full part inconquering them...

I know that I speak the conscience and determination of the Americanpeople when I say that we shall do everything in our power to crush Hitler andhis Nazi forces.” 75)

Roosevelt speaking to Congress on 6 January 1942:

“Japan’s scheme of conquest goes back half a century. But the dreams ofempire of the Japanese and Fascist leaders were modest in comparison withthe gargantuan aspirations of Hitler and his Nazis. Even before they came topower in 1933, their plans for conquest had been drawn. Those plans providedfor ultimate domination, not of any one section of the world but of the wholeearth and all the oceans on it. …

Destruction of the material and spiritual centres of civilization – this hasbeen and still is the purpose of Hitler and his Italian and Japanese chessmen.They would wreck the power of the British Commonwealth and Russia andChina and the Netherlands – and then combine all their forces to achieve theirultimate goal, the conquest of the United States. …

The world is too small to provide adequate ‘living room’ for both Hitlerand God. In proof of that, the Nazis have now announced their plan forenforcing their new German, pagan religion throughout the world – the planby which the Holy Bible and the Cross of Mercy would be displaced by MeinKampf and the swastika and the naked sword.” 75)

After signing the Atlantic Charter, Churchill later told the British Parliament(27 January 1942),

“that the Atlantic Conference gave him increasing assurance that the U.S.,‘even if not herself attacked’, would come to a war in the Far East, and that ifJapan were to run amok in the Pacific, ‘we shall not fight alone’.” 76)

74) S. Boratünskij, “Diplomacy in the Period of the Second World War” (Russian), p. 157.75) Documents on American Foreign Relations, vol. IV, July 1941-June 1942, pp. 15, 46-48.76) A.C. Wedemeyer, op. cit., p. 18.


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Roosevelt cynically confirmed this, his foreign policy, in an address to theForeign Policy Association on 21 October 1944:

“Obviously, we could have come to terms with Hitler and accepted a minorrole in his totalitarian world. We rejected that! We could have compromisedwith Japan... And we rejected that.” 77)

Sven Hedin, the renowned Swedish explorer and scientist, had written, on thebasis of and as a result of his historical research, already during the Second WorldWar:

“This war will go down in history as the war of President Roosevelt.” 78)

At the time of writing this, Sven Hedin was not even informed about all ofRoosevelt’s measures. Almost the same words as those used by Sven Hedin wereused at the same time by American Senator Nye, who in 1936 was directing theNye-committee investigation into the reasons for the USA entering the First WorldWar (27 April 1941):

“The same powers that were making fools of us during the Great War areagain making fools of us… If we are ever involved in this war, it will becalled by future historians by only one name: ‘the War of the President’, becauseevery one of his steps since his speech in Chicago [of 5 October 1937] hasbeen turned towards war.” 79)

American General Albert Wedemeyer, who, under the Army Chief of Staffand future Secretary of State [Foreign Minister], Marshall, was charged withdrawing up the “Victory program” for the defeat of Hitler, added to this statement,after having examined Roosevelt’s various war measures during the years 1940-1941, the following words:

“Thus we should have been openly involved in the war months beforePearl Harbor had it not been for Hitler’s evident determination not to beprovoked by our belligerent acts into declaring war on us...

Roosevelt had carried Congress along with him in his un-neutral actionsby conjuring up the bogey of an anticipated attack on America. We now know,thanks to the exhaustive examination of the German secret archives at thetime of the Nuremberg trials, that there never was any plan of attack on the

77) Documents on American Foreign Relations, vol. VII, July 1944-June 1945, p. 5.78) S. Hedin, Amerika im Kampf der Kontinente, p. 202.79) H. Sündermann, op. cit., p. 181.


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United States. On the contrary, the tons of documents examined prove thatHitler was all along intent on avoiding war with the United States. He did notdeclare war on us until compelled to do so by his alliance with Japan.

In the words of the eminent British military historian, Major General J.F.C.Fuller, writing in A Military History of the Western World (p. 629), in 1956:

‘The second American crusade ended even more disastrously than the first,and this time the agent provocateur was not the German Kaiser but theAmerican President, whose abhorrence of National Socialism and craving forpower precipitated his people into the European conflict and so again made itworld-wide. From the captured German archives there is no evidence to supportthe President’s claims that Hitler contemplated an offensive against the WesternHemisphere, and until America entered the war there is abundant evidencethat this was the one thing he wished to avert.’

Extreme provocation having failed to induce Germany to make war on us,and there being no prospect of Congress declaring war because of thedetermination of the great majority of the American people not to becomeactive belligerents, Roosevelt turned his eyes to the Pacific. It could be thatJapan would show less restraint, since it was possible to exert diplomatic andeconomic pressures that would practically compel her to make war on us.” 80)

“Clare Booth-Luce shocked many people when she said at the RepublicanParty Congress in 1944 that Roosevelt ‘has lied us [the USA] into the war’.When, however, this statement proved to be true, the Roosevelt-followersstopped denying it, and praised it by maintaining that ‘he had to lie’, in orderto save his country, and then Britain and ‘the World’.” 81)

Just what weight would the IMT tribunal in Nuremberg in 1945/1946 haveattached to only a single one of these pieces of evidence, had one been able toascribe suchlike quotations, guidelines and foreign political initiatives to theleaders of the NSDAP [National Social German Workers Party]?

The Soviet Union

The ruthless fighting motto of the German Communist Party [KPD] “Beat theFascists wherever you find them”, applied in the field of domestic affairs,corresponded to the conception of foreign policy of the Soviet Union, which hasalso been orientated, from the outset, towards attacking and destroying the

80) A. C. Wedemeyer, op. cit., pp. 7-9.81) P.H. NicoII, Britain’s Blunder (German edition), p. 45.


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“Fascists”. While the Communists professed, on the one hand, to recognize thefundamental principles of international law of the right of self-determination ofnations – that is of a right to self-determination! – they considered themselvesjustified, on the other hand, in view of the drastic changes within the internalaffairs of the Reich, to fall upon Germany with force of arms.

For the Communists, no binding system of law and order exists within thestructure of international law. They will only call upon the constitution of theinternational law when, for tactical reasons, it appears useful. Then as now [1965],the foreign policy of the Soviet Union was, or rather is, governed by ideologicalprinciples, which do not rest on the universally binding notions of right,international standards of law or formal treaties made, but solely serve the finalobjective of world domination. Still now the basic principles of Lenin are followed:

“Not one solitary Marxist can deny, without in general breaking with theprinciples of Marxism and Socialism, that the interests of Socialism rank higherthan the right of self-determination of nations.” 1)

“If war does not happen of its own accord, then we have to make it happen.If we are forced to put up with this pack of capitalistic, thieving riffraff, whoare all busy sharpening their knives at us, then it is our clear duty to makethem turn these knives on each other.” 1)

“No power on earth can hold back the advance of the Communist worldrevolution towards the Soviet world-republic.” 1)

As Germany was one of the corner stones in the Soviets’ scheme of worldrevolution, but “Fascism” or, even worse, “Hitler-Fascism”, stood in the wayand, for this reason, had been declared enemy number one (“Fascism = the mostterrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, the most chauvinistic, the mostimperialistic elements of capitalistic finance”, so explains the Sovietencyclopaedia), it thus historically clearly establishes the orientation and intentionof Soviet foreign policy during the years between 1933 and 1939-1941 with regardto the German Reich. Only military weakness prevented the Soviet Union at thetime from attacking Germany. Since 1918 the Bolshevists have been pushingunceasingly, and with all available means at their disposal, towards the conquestof Germany – at a time, when Hitler as yet was not at all politically active, andwhen Germany in her foreign politics and in the economic and military field wasbeing kept in an impotent state by the Versailles diktat. Yet the Communists had

1) V.I. Lenin, Ausgewählte Werke, East Berlin, 1955, vol. II, p. 310; Ausgewählte Werke, 12 volumes,Vienna 1932 seq, vol. VIII, p. 303; J. Bochenski, G. Niemeyer, Handbuch des Weltkommunismus,p. 174: Speech on 26 November 1920 to the Secretaries of the Moscow Cells; V.I. Lenin, “Works”(Russian), vol. XXIX, p. 125.


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not just set their sights on this goal of world revolution to repulse a Germaninvasion of Russia. It was not, after all, against the “barbaric, marauding nations”or against nationalistic points of view, but it was orientated towards worldwideconquest – and, what is more, by every means of force.

It is, therefore, not surprising that Moscow’s foreign policy course since 1918had been set along the guidelines resulting from the demands of Marxism-Leninism– independent of the politics or the formation of German governments! TheBolshevists admit openly that this has been their position consistently throughoutthe years to the present day. Wilhelm Pieck, the former President of the GermanDemocratic Republic (“DDR”), stated, when a member of the Reichstag, on 1August 1931:

“The Red Army in Soviet Russia is standing by to give military assistanceto the Communist army in Germany, as soon as they are ready to put an end tothe bourgeois state.” 2)

Klara Zetkin, the Communist doyenne-president at the summer Reichstag, in1932,

“had stated in her speech, to the accompaniment of heavy insults from theNational Socialists, that she was speaking on Moscow’s behalf, and that shecould announce ‘as of now’ the assistance of the Red Army, should ‘the workingpeople of Germany’ rise up for a war of liberation.” 3)

Every German politician was compelled to reach the obvious conclusion re-garding the situation within the Weimar Republic, later described by Soviethistorians to this effect:

“During the transitional period of Fascism on the way to power, the GermanCommunist Party (KPD) was the biggest and most powerful section of theCommunist International from the capitalist countries. At the end of the year1932 there were within its rank roughly 300,000 members…

The German Communist Party called on the people to organize a massuprising for the downfall of the Fascist regime.” 4)

In the Moscow “Isvestia” appeared on 22 January 1934 from the pen ofKaganovich, Stalin’s brother-in-law, the following observation:

2) O. Schmidt-Hannover, Umdenken oder Anarchie, p. 52.3) H. Frank, Im Angesicht des Galgens, p. 112.4) G. Novikova, “Recent History” (Russian), vol. I, pp. 150-151.


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“The conflict between Germany and France is strengthening our positionin Europe. The disagreements among the European countries must beintensified.”

In order to enlarge the differences between Germany and France and widen itinto a conflict, the Soviet Union offered to the French her “well-equipped andwell-trained Red Army in the case of a conflict with Germany”.5)

The guiding principle had long been fixed by Stalin in 1925 or, rather, in1927; it had just as little to do with the person of Adolf Hitler or his aims andideas as it did with National Socialism per se and, furthermore, it was not evensolely concerned with Germany.

On 19 January 1925 to the Central Committee of the CPSU:

“But when the war starts, we will not sit back and take it easy – we will haveto fall in, but we go last. We will line up to bring the decisive weight to bear.” 6)

This strategy Stalin confirmed once more shortly before his death.6) Or, Stalinon another occasion:

“We need to remember that Lenin had emphasized just how much dependsupon delaying the unavoidable war with the capitalist countries, because thewar must be put off until such time that either the revolution has entrencheditself in the colonies or, in the end, the capitalists are fighting each other…The basis for our relations with the capitalist countries lies in our affirmingthe peaceful co-existence between the two opposing systems.” 7)

Founded on these motives, the Soviet Union was trying, adhering strictly tothe Leninian teachings of strategy and tactics, to aggravate the disagreementsbetween the European countries; openly fanning the flames of hatred, they werealso sowing the seeds of discord in the European nations by making use, as wastheir wont, of their dialectical phraseology. Result: Agitating against nationalunification in Germany, against the “imperialistic annexation” (Rhineland, Austria,Sudetenland, Bohemia-Moravia, Memel), and it seemed irrelevant that theBolsheviks had been, once upon a time, fiercely against the Versailles ruling.

“Within the political context, the Second World War had already startedon 30 January 1933.” 8)

5) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten 1934-1935, pp. 220-221.6) J. Stalin, “Works” (Russian), vol. VII, p. 14; J. Stalin, “The Economic Problems of Socialism in

the USSR” (Russian) in “New Times” No. 44/1952, supplement p. 40.7) G. Kass, England und Deutschland von 1900-1958, p. 68.8) Kommunist, No. 2, February 1957, p. 60.


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This agitating pose was also meeting the tactical interests of the Soviet Union,given that it opened the prospects of a military coalition against Germany, withits own potentials for expansion. Routinely ascribing to other governments awillingness and readiness for war are, anyway, integral parts of the Communistworldview and politics, in which facts are totally irrelevant. The Prague Marxistnewspaper Pravo Lidu wrote on 18 September 1938, thus before the home-comingof the Sudeten-Germans to the Reich:

“We may not be strong enough to defeat Germany, but we are strong enoughto get all Europe embroiled in a war.” *)

Here public expression is given to what is not only consistent with Commu-nist ideology, but which had already been arranged in the Comintern a long timeago. Let us briefly note the previously cited Soviet admission:

“Throughout the course of the prewar years the Soviet government wasprepared to employ armed force against Germany.” 9)

Marshal Voroshilov also affirmed to his opposite number, the French GeneralDoumenc, during the course of the British-French-Soviet military negotiationson 22 August 1939:

“When Czecho-Slovakia fell last year, we were waiting for a sign fromFrance. Our troops were standing by, but no sign was given.” 10)

Therefore, those eager to apply force of arms during the prewar years and,consequently, act aggressively were, admittedly, the Soviets. If one follows throughthe Communists’ line of reasoning, then it would be first and foremost GreatBritain, France and the United States incurring an “historical guilt” by the factthat they had pursued a “policy of non-interference” with regard to Hitler, insteadof promptly following the Soviet policy of meddling and destruction. NikitaKhrushtchev acknowledged in an interview in November 1958:

“In 1939 Stalin saw an opportunity to weaken Hitler, before the comingattack on Russia, in that he encouraged him to wage war in the West.” 11)

Khrushtchev in Kattowitz in July 1959:

*) G. Rühle, Das Dritte Reich, vol. 1938, p. 255. 9) Platanova, Pavlenko, Parotkina, “The Second World War” (Russian), p. 17.10) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 116.11) Die Welt, 12 November 1958, p. 6: Interview with the American journalist Walter Lippmann.


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“Was Stalin right when he concluded an agreement with Hitler at thattime? Stalin decided to do so upon calculating that then war against the otherswould break out. He said to me at the time:

‘We will have to make war against Hitler. He cannot only just fight theWest. But we must gain time’. And so that is what happened.” 12)

The Soviet Union continued also later, in spite of having concluded treaties inthe meantime (Non-Aggression Pact of 23 August 1939, Friendship Pact of 28September 1939), to pursue intensively the goal of defeating National Socialismor, that is to say, Germany – yes, Europe – at the first given opportunity – all forreasons of Communist morals. These acknowledge only that which servesMarxism-Leninism or, rather, the world revolutionary Communist Party.

“The Non-Aggression Pact with Germany was designed to gain time andstrengthen our defensive forces… Not Britain and France were the true fightingforce. The true fighting force against the Fascist peril, the single-mindedfighters from beginning to end, were the Communist parties. The Communistswere fighting uncompromisingly against Fascism.” 13)

Stalin’s agreement with Hitler did not render the world revolutionary objectiveinvalid. Moscow’s phraseology towards Germany since that time did lose someof its ferocity, it is true, but the dialectics remained unchanged, thereby awakeningdistrust. All signs indicated that Stalin had concluded this treaty merely inaccordance with the spirit of Lenin’s tactics, as was indeed openly admitted bySoviet historians after the war:

“The fundamental strategic tasks of the work force remained unchangedthroughout the whole course of the Second World War. They involved thedestruction of Fascism, but first and foremost in its Hitlerite expression, thisbeing the biggest and most dangerous obstacle for the nations on the way topeace, to social progress, to Socialism.…

Although the strategic line of the Communist parties remained unchangedin the years of the Second World War, the tactical forms of the working classstruggle were changed, depending on the then existing concrete historicalcircumstances of the various stages of the war...

The tactics for the Communist parties were laid down by the CentralCommittee of the Communist International. In October 1939 it issued a pro-clamation, branding as imperialistic the war on both sides of the then warringfactions. The slogan of the proclamation was this:

‘No support for the politics of the ruling classes’.

12) Kölner Stadtanzeiger, 17 July 1959.13) Kommunist, No. 5, April 1958, pp. 77, 80.


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Already by the second half of September 1939 the Communist parties hadbegun to put into practice the new tactical line, which had been worked out bythe Central Committee of the Comintern. ....

In connection with the invasion of France by the German-Fascistconquerors, the French Communists changed their tactical stance. At the endof May 1940 the Communist Party approved a declaration on the struggleagainst the foreign invaders and the national traitors…

The manifesto of the Communist Party of 10 July 1940 was the firstinvitation to begin launching into the anti-Hitler war. It laid the foundationfor the resistance movement of the French nation. At the end of 1940, theCommunists became the organizers of the first groups of fighting strengthwhich began their fight in 1941. This was the period of gathering together theanti-Fascist patriotic forces.…

Everywhere the Communist parties were encouraging the patrioticmovements to create an anti-Fascist united front and to embark upon offeringresistance – and they were the organizers. In these countries (Poland,Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece and other countries), armed andhighly trained units were set up to lead the fight against the foreign conquerors.

The military defeat of several European countries and their occupation bythe Hitlerite troops was creating, in the spring of 1940, changed conditionsfor the Communist parties in the fight for uniting the work force againstFascism.” 14)

The USSR, when concluding the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 23August 1939, so we are informed by Soviet historians,

“did not doubt for one moment Germany’s intention to attack the SovietUnion.” 15)

“From the first moment on (after the conclusion of the Pact), war withGermany seemed inevitable in the coming weeks.” 16)

Anyone versed in Communist dialectical jargon must gather from these linesthat not for one moment did Stalin take seriously the agreements with Hitler; instead,they were for him – in accordance with the teachings of Lenin on strategy andtactics – merely means of deception, “tactical” measures in the service of his worldrevolution. Not at any time have these Soviet authors asserted that Moscow hadendeavoured to keep these treaties. Stalin’s arrangements with Great Britain and

14) M.I. Semiriaga, “The Second World War and Proletarian Internationalism” (Russian), pp. 11, 12,13, 16, 17.

15) Platanova, Pavlenko, Parotkina, op. cit., p. 155 seq.16) Kommunist, 12/1960, pp. 74-80.


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France, just prior to the outbreak of war, were based on the same objective. Stalinrealized that he would achieve a result furthering the world revolution, if he couldsucceed in getting the European powers embroiled in a war. So he stated his intentionsto the members of the Politburo at a secret meeting on 23 August 1939:

“I am convinced that Germany, if we continue our alliance with Franceand Britain, will find herself forced to draw back from Poland. This way warwill be avoided. But events will then assume a character, which is threateningto us.

If, on the other hand, we accept the proposals made by Germany, Britishand French intervention will become inevitable. In any case we shall have tostay out of the conflict. Our interests demand it. We shall thus have to acceptthe German proposals and, with a polite refusal, send the British and Frenchmissions home.

It is important for us that this war should break out. We must intensifyCommunist efforts so as to be well prepared for the time when the conflictwill come to its end.” 17)

The Soviet Ambassador in London, Maisky, confirmed this attitude, explainingin his memoirs that “the Soviet-German agreement of August 23, 1939, was, ofcourse, not an act of perfection – and the Soviet government never regarded it assuch”.18) The fact alone that in Soviet writings it is emphasized, again and again,that since concluding the agreement with Hitler, the USSR regarded war withGermany as “inevitable” (without, however, giving any reasons for this“inevitability”) – while for the year 1941 the expedient argument was used thatStalin had been “taken by surprise” and was not expecting a German attack –demonstrates unambiguously that Stalin’s intention, being focused on attack, hadcaused this “inevitability of war”.

If it was a case of Stalin concluding the Non-Aggression Pact with the aim totrigger off an European war using Hitler – and Khrushtchev later confirmed thatthis was Stalin’s intention19) – then the next step along this path could only havebeen so calculated as to await the most favourable opportunity for defeating“Fascism” and thereby to conquer the Continent. Although the Blitzkriege(lightning wars) of the German Wehrmacht in Poland, Norway, the Netherlands,Belgium and France were a surprise for Moscow, so a German excursion to theBritish Isles would be bound to expose, at any rate, the frontier with the Soviet

17) Nation Europa, 10/1961, p. 26, quotes: Georges Suarez (and Guy Laborde), Agonie de la Paix,Paris, 1942, p. 97, footn. 1.

18) I.M. Maisky, Who helped Hitler? p. 210.19) Die Welt, 12 November 1958, p. 6.


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Union once more and would guarantee an unstoppable Soviet advance on theContinent. The German leadership had ample proof to hand months before the startof the Russian campaign that the Soviets were, in fact, intending to utilize such anopportune break for an advance.20) Some of the proof was the ever widening demandsdirected against vital German interests, which Stalin made, exploiting the Europeanwar situation, but also the intensified Communist underground and espionageactivities and the sabotage preparations in the German territories. For the Balticstates, for Finland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Turkey, the Soviet actionsagainst East Poland (the motive for and the timing of the invasion, the increasedmassing of troops after the end of fighting, the hurried construction of numerousairfields within the immediate vicinity of the demarcation-line, etc.) were bound tobe startling and strange at a time, when there were no indications that Hitler wantedto breach the Non-Aggression and Friendship Pact with the USSR – if only to beheedful of the dangers of a war on two fronts. The Soviet pressure on these countries,which meant an obvious threat to the vital sources of raw materials (the oil centre atPloesti and the nickel deposits near Petsamo), was kept up even after Stalin’s initialdemands had been met. Further requests were made known, stretching to the pointof establishing Soviet bases in the Dardanelles and Bulgaria, extending Bulgaria upto the Aegean Sea, the annexation of the remaining Bukovina, that is to say thefurther dismembering of Rumania, and even the right of a say in the matter of theexit points to the Baltic Sea – further “provisional” demands, as it were.

When the Red Army was deployed on the Soviet Western border, this havingalready started in late autumn 1939 – in spite of a virtually undefended German Easternfront line – it was offensively structured and vastly strengthened, on a scale hithertounknown21), stretching from Finland and the Baltic through Poland as far as Rumaniaand the Black Sea, then this had to be regarded as further evidence of an imminentlythreatening large-scale offensive of Bolshevism. Up to June 1941, there had beendeployed on the Soviet side “with extreme caution and very gradually” 22) in the Westernborder regions, which, furthermore, is admitted 23) : 13 armies of over 131 infantrydivisions, 23 cavalry divisions, 36 motorized brigades and roughly 40 armoured tankdivisions, coming close to 4.7 million soldiers.24) One should compare this figure

20) W. Schellenberg, Memoiren, p. 377 seq.; H. Springer, Das Schwert auf der Waage, pp. 99, 210;H. Springer, Es sprach Hans Fritsche, pp. 88-89; IMT, vol. X, pp. 328, 589, 590 and vol. XV,pp. 425-432, 655.

21) H.G. Seraphim, Die deutsch-russichen Beziehungen 1939-1941, pp. 62-68: Statement by GeneralHalder to the Commission of the Military Tribunal IV (Case 11) in Nuremberg, 9 September 1948.

22) Platanova, Pavlenko, Parotkina, op. cit., p. 178.23) P. Fabry, Der Hitler-Stalin Pakt 1939-1941, p. 396 seq.; “The History of the Great Patriotic War

of the Soviet Union 1941-1945” (Russian), vol. I, p. 471 seq.24) H.A. Jacobsen, Der Zweite Weltkrieg in Chronik und Dokumenten, vol. I, p. 372.


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with the one in 1939, when the whole of the Red Army numbered only 2 millionmen.25) In June 1941, the Soviet Union had 21,000 tanks, which included some lightand outdated ones, as well as the bomb shells of the campaign: T-34 and KV [for K.Voroshilov].26) + 24) German military intelligence underestimated the Soviet army by100 army units, and, besides, had “no conception of their modern weaponry”.27)

One compare these facts, i.e. “the almost crushing Soviet superiority right upto the date of attack on 22 June” 28) with these: the German deployment, which isreally only worth mentioning as of January 1941 as a starter date, its massing oftroops that was not in place before 27 May 1941, and its offensive formation thatwas not ready until the 15 June 1941 (there was lacking, up to this date, with a fewexceptions, each and every type of tank unit)28)+29), already required 17,000 railtransportations, in spite of it being a much smaller volume of forces (118 divisions,19 tank divisions, 15 1/4 motorized divisions, with a total of 3,050,000 men = 75%of the army in the field).28) These facts force the conclusion that the Red Armycould not have been stopped in their advance to the Atlantic coast by any armedforces in Europe, neither in 1941 nor in 1942, if Hitler had waited until their evidentmassing for a large-scale attack had started rolling.

The Soviet historians do not attribute the Red Army’s preparations for anoffensive to some concrete measures coming from the Reich government. As thetarget is world revolution, consistently pursued since 1917, this is not surprising.Any imputed aiming at world domination, any predisposition of lusting for war anda mania for conquest, “subjugating” the European countries for reasons of securingthe area for deployment against the Soviet Union, the vast “contradictions” of the“capitalist system”, etc., are not arguments. These are rather far-fetched phrases,dialectical interpretations to disguise their own policy of expansion in theirpropaganda. Every non-Communist has these phrases hurled in the face, as soon ashe enters the political arena.

Whereas in Nuremberg 1945/46 the evidence that had been available to theReich leadership about an impending Soviet large-scale offensive was destroyedor, at least, denied to the public, so after the war a further body of evidence didreach the public. Thus, the former Soviet General Alexei Markoff, who in thespring of 1941 was in command of troops on the Soviet Western frontier, put anaccount in the American newspaper, the Saturday Evening Post of 13 May 1950,according to which Stalin, after the defeat of France in the summer of 1940, had

25) P. Fabry, op. cit., pp. 399, 415, 420.26) ibid., p. 525.27) D.M. Projektor, “The War in Europe 1939-1941” (Russian), p. 394.28) P. Fabry, op. cit., pp. 384-385.29) ibid., p. 425.


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ordered “preparations for war against Germany, because Hitler had won tooquickly”.

“To his question of how much time he had available for getting his menready for combat, he received from the Soviet General Staff the answer: ‘Untilautumn; we are not yet ready. We will strike when convenient for us’.”30)

But in the Party’s official publications from Moscow, too, the Soviets haveadmitted Stalin’s aggressive intentions at that time: “In May-June 1940” – i.e.during the campaign of France – “the Soviets changed their views on the war andresolved upon waging war and on the destruction of Fascism”.31) A further officialsource of the Party added to this that “the prevalent mood on the eve of war, thatof an easy victory over the enemy”, should later prove to have a detrimentaleffect.32) Thus, the “enemy” was decided on from the start, as was the determinationto defeat him, irrespective of whether only recently one had concluded with hima Friendship Pact and lucrative economic treaties.

Further admissions can be obtained from the work “The History of the GreatPatriotic War 1941-1945”, published by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism at theCentral Committee of the CPSU, Moscow 1960, volume I. The followingquotations speak for themselves, refuting authoritatively the propaganda,dogmatized for years, of the sole German culpability for the Russian campaign orfor the Second World War in general. On page 177 of the work it is stated that theforeign policy line of the Soviet Union remained, regardless of the German-SovietNon-Aggression and Friendship Pact, unalterably geared towards

“preparing conditions for establishing a mighty union of nations andgovernments against Hitler-Germany...

Thanks to the German-Soviet pact, significant changes in the internationalsituation were becoming apparent.”

With no consideration for the treaty with Hitler, Moscow was giving support“on the eve and after the start of the war” to the illegal fight of the anti-Fascists inGermany.33) That the Soviet Union had considerably reinforced their attackingcapacity in the time between 1939 and 1941, has been repeatedly emphasized bythe Communists. As it was, while already in June 1941 the units of troops “in theWestern military districts were in many ways superior to Germany’s”34), so “the

30) H. Sündermann, Die Pioniere und die Ahnungslosen, p. 181.31) Kommunist, 5/1958, pp. 77-84; Geschichtsfälscher, pp. 56-57.32) Kommunist, 12/1960, pp. 74-80.33) “The History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945” (Russian), vol. I, p. 388.34) ibid., p. 476.


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biggest part of the reorganization work there was meant to be achieved betweenJuly and September 1941”.34)

“The Soviet Union’s increased strength and capabilities allowed, in theevent of war, the setting of a determined strategic goal, up to the totaldestruction of the aggressor in his own territory. The main consideration inthe war operations for attaining these objectives was the attack, on whosetheoretical elaboration great attention was focussed.” 35)

“We will wage the war offensively by taking it into the enemy’s territory.”36)

“In accordance with the theory [i.e. the strategic conception] that breakingthrough the enemy’s tactical defence is achieved with the help of offensiveoperations in depth, army units... were supposed to break not only the tactical,but also, and this is especially important, the operative enemy defence in depth.This breakthrough was to be carried out like lightning, so that the enemytroops have no time for retreat. The forward-charging troops had to overtakethe retreating enemy and deny his reserves the opportunity to reinforce defencesat the frontiers in between. They were to expose the enemy’s flanks, and thuscreate favourable conditions for strikes into the flanks or for the encircling ofenemy units.” 37)

“For the offensive operations, special importance was given to the ‘shockarmies’, i.e. especially reinforced armies, which were designated for the mainobject of the attack.” 38)

“The combat strength of these shock armies had to be extremely powerful,according to planning: 3-4 rifle corps (12-15 rifle divisions), 1-2 motorizedor cavalry corps, 3-4 air divisions, 10-12 artillery regiments, some armouredregiments, engineer battalions, units for chemical defence etc. For the mainattack route was the operative concentration [of troops] for breaking throughthe enemy’s defensive position as follows: one rifle division per 2-2.5 kilo-metres, 50-100 fieldguns and as many tanks per kilometre. There was planneda depth of 150-250 kilometres for the offensive operations, for the operationof the shock armies a depth of 75-100 kilometres. The general width of thefrontline could vary in this combat operation from between 150-300 kilometres,that of the shock armies from between 50-80 kilometres. The width of themain strike, i.e. the actual breakthrough zone, was to be for the frontline 60-80 kilometres, for the shock armies this was to be 20-30 kilometres. The armies

35) ibid., p. 440.36) ibid., p. 441 (draft of Field Service Regulations 1939, p. 9).37) ibid., p. 442.38) ibid., p. 443.


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were to advance an average of 10-15 kilometres in 24 hours, the motorizedunits 40-50 kilometres. The offensive operations had to be opened withpreliminary artillery and the deployment of infantry and tanks.” 39)

“Defensive operations were not receiving much attention. The defencewas regarded only as a back-up for safeguarding the attack.” 40)

“The attacking width for a rifle division was fixed at 3-4.5 kilometres, forthat of a rifle corps at between 8-12 kilometres.

The air force was assigned the task of carrying out operations in depth andto gain air supremacy. According to the Soviet view prevalent at the time, Redair supremacy could also be obtained on the operational scale, provided thatthe mission of the air force was done unexpectedly, was massed, and withoutany let-up whatever the state of the weather.” 41)

“The orders and directives for the Soviet naval forces were also orientedtowards attack. Here, too, quick, sudden and concentrated strikes againstenemy ships, sea routes, coastal targets and mine-barrages etc., were sup-posed to quickly put the enemy’s fleet out of action.” 42)

“The massing of troops in the special military district Kiev was very strong.In this district were located five armies and a number of mechanized units...

The forces stationed at the (this) South-Western front were sufficient forsettling not only defensive tasks, but also offensive tasks...

Nevertheless, no measures whatsoever had been planned in the event ofthe enemy attacking without a declaration of war or should the fighting at theborder not turn out in our favour.” 43)

Thus far the strategic offensive planning of the Soviet Union against the enemyalong the Western border: Germany. Furthermore, it is typical of Soviet historicalliterature to suppress systematically the German-Soviet Friendship Pact of 28September 1939; this can only be an indication that the Soviets took that accordeven less seriously than the Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler, signed four weeksbefore.

A further testimony deserves attention: The then highly decorated Commander-in-Chief of the Twentieth Soviet army, promoted at the beginning of 1942 toDeputy Commander-in-Chief of army group Volkhov, the General AndreiAndreievich Vlasov, who, in 1942 in Berlin after his capture, replied to the question

39) ibid., p. 444.40) ibid., p. 445.41) ibid., pp. 448-449.42) ibid., p. 450.43) F.D. Vorobiev, V.M. Kravzov, “The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945” (Russian),

p. 56.


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of whether Stalin would have had the intention to attack Germany and what datefor such an offensive would have been planned:

“The offensive had been intended for August/September 1941. The Sovietshad been forming up since the beginning of the year, which, due to the badSoviet railroad lines, went rather slowly. Hitler judged the situation perfectlyand plowed right into the Soviets while they were deploying.” 44)

This statement is all the more significant, since Vlasov mentioned this date inthe year 1942, since the testimony was available in 1945 to the Inter-Allied MilitaryTribunal in Nuremberg – and, irrespective of this, the already cited Soviet GeneralMarkoff had, in the year 1950, specified the same date period. Therefore, with somany corresponding pieces of evidence it should have been in the interest of aSoviet “innocence”-historiography – always practised, anyway! – to at leastchange this date period. The opposite is the case. In 1960, Soviet historiography,as already mentioned, moved the date for the completion of the militarydeployment to between July and September 1941, although remaining more orless silent about further details.34) That on entering the USSR German troops hadfound Soviet General Staff maps that showed objectives advancing deeply intoGermany, but also other unmistakable proof of a different kind, up to the point ofSoviet school text books teaching the need for the conquest of Europe, is to bementioned only in passing.45)

Peculiar is the only word for describing the manner of appraisal that trivializesthese facts and would like, most of all, to bury them completely, not acceptingthem as valid.

It is a fact that Hitler, in his “Mein Kampf”, does draw attention to the need ofessential “Living space [Lebensraum] in the East” for the German nation. Hedoes not, however, – and this is a significant difference – claim that he was goingto take it, should he ever become head of the German government. Incidentally, itemerges from all the documents that there was no connection between this andthe plan “Barbarossa”. While that book was an agitation tract from a time ofinternal strife, so this plan had been drawn up solely to forestall directly imminentRed Army attacks of annihilation.46) Given that later, in the course of the murderousconflict between Germany and the USSR, the notion of Lebensraum became acute,leading to the fatal consequences, resulted from the realities of this world. Therewould hardly be a victorious state that would not seek to counterbalance theirenforced casualty toll by enlarging their influence, their economic sphere and

44) H.G. Seraphim, op. cit., p. 85.45) ibid., pp. 87-89.46) P. Fabry, op. cit.


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their strategic security. We should not particularly need to refer to Versailles 1919,to Yalta, Potsdam and Tokyo 1945. It is historically incorrect, when the“Barbarossa” plan or the Poland campaign or the Second World War per se isdeduced from Hitler’s explications in “Mein Kampf”. Neither Poland nor GreatBritain nor France nor the USSR nor the United States of America aligned theirpolitics with these remarks, but became active, quite irrespective of this, in theirown, expansionist interests.

Not the person Adolf Hitler, not the essence of his ideas and not any singlemeasure from the Reich government was a criterion for the Communists. Just themere fact that he was not making himself available for Moscow’s worldrevolutionary plans and was refusing to accept Marxism-Leninism as the absolutelyideal solution was sufficient to summarily condemn him, his party and, finally,the German people led by him – as criminals, aggressors, conspirators, imperialists,militarists, capitalists etc. The ability to put a stop to the Communist infiltrationwas reason enough for the Communist system to start up a ruthless and worldwidecampaign of defamatory statements and lies. Millions of people are forced, byuse of Communism’s power structure, to acknowledge the thus established valuejudgments as “scientifically proven truths”, as the “intellectual common propertyof mankind”, and to risk their lives for this. It is in accordance with Communisttactics to subject one adversary (i.e. non-Communist politician) after the other toa heavy propaganda barrage, and to get the remaining “capitalist states”, using“all kinds of tricks and all kinds of dodges”, hitched up to their endeavours tosmash down this nearest enemy. So it comes as no surprise to the expert thatexactly the same methods of defamation and the same slogans, as had been usedagainst the German Reich, were transferred, after the Second World War, ontothe United States of America.

Communists state openly that they even consider lies, slander, the breaking oftreaties and falsifying history as moral, insofar as these serve their interests, i.e.world revolution. Here then is revealed how unprincipled and perilous is thefoundation of values, from which the Communists start out. As long as everyoneis charged with a “culpability” and is even threatened with liquidation, who doesnot think along Marxist-Leninist – at that time still Stalinist – thought processesand does not submit to the will of Moscow; as long as every non-Communist islabelled from the outset as aggressor and enemy of peace, one

cannot promote peace or guarantee peace,cannot solve national problems,cannot create international trust andcan certainly not establish “legal principles”.


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The Last Days of Peace

The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact

On 22 August 1939 Neville Chamberlain sent a letter to Hitler – obviouslyprompted by the events becoming apparent in Moscow – in which he underlined,in general terms, Britain’s alliance commitment to Poland and the necessity ofholding discussions in a climate of trust, without, however, herewith proposingany concrete steps as had now become imperative. In his reply Hitler referred tothe causes of German-Polish tensions and pointed out that Poland would feelspurred on to further provocations, if the British government carried on givingtheir unconditional support to these excesses and did not use their influence inWarsaw for establishing an “atmosphere of confidence”.

It was already becoming obvious on this day that the British government hadbrought the negotiations “to a complete stand-still”, which had been initiated at asecret conference on the 7 August at the German-Danish border. Held at the estateof the Swedish industrialist, Birger Dahlerus, those talks were attended byHermann Göring, General Bodenschatz, an interpreter and seven British “businessassociates” of Dahlerus. Their outcome was that Hitler agreed to a secret four-power conference.1)

On 23 August, the Reich Foreign Minister, von Ribbentrop, signed the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact in Moscow. This accord could not have been foreseen.Hitler had concluded the Pact, because the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations,ongoing for months, were taking on a threatening character for Germany with thedispatch to Moscow of the Military Missions at the end of July, thereby confrontinghim with the alternative either to accept this massive alliance coalition or todemolish it via diplomatic channels. These Allied endeavours included Sovietexpansionist advancing into Central Europe. Great Britain and France were willingto actually sign over to the Soviets the Baltic States, Poland and Rumania, in

1) B. Dahlerus, Der letze Versuch, pp. 46-48; Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol.VI, pp. 743 seq., 751 seq.; the Dahlerus talks had already started in July.


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opposition to the will of their peoples and governments2), in the knowledge of“the disadvantages and risks of allowing Soviet troops on Polish soil”.3)

It comes as a shock to discover that the French Foreign Minister, Bonnet, on23 August avails himself of the lie of alleging to London the Polish consent toRussian troops marching through Polish territory, and that Halifax recognizesthis lie and, nevertheless, forwards a note to the Head of the British delegation inMoscow, Admiral Drax, that he should endorse the statements of the FrenchGeneral Doumenc.4)

(In July 1940, after resuming these contacts, the British Ambassador inMoscow, Cripps, at the suggestion of his government, was recommending to Stalinto also take possession of the Balkans and of some reservations in theDardanelles).5) The British guarantee to Poland, which merely concerned theGerman-Polish border, was thereby exposed, in the light of the thus contrivedstate of affairs, as a wicked hypocrisy that camouflaged war-minded intentions.The British Ambassador in Berlin, Henderson, admitted to Lord Halifax in a letterof 22 August 1939 that Hitler had been forced by Britain into taking this step inMoscow:

“But I cannot say that I was surprised as I have always felt that our policywith Poland would only end by driving Germany and Russia together. At leastone cannot blame Germany.” 6)

Taking cognizance of these facts, Hitler cannot be blamed that the Non-Aggression Pact which he concluded with Moscow likewise made provisions formodifications, which in the secret additional protocol were expressed in thedelimiting of the spheres of interest as “in the event of territorial changes”.Nevertheless, the Non-Aggression Pact with Stalin, unlike the allied venture, wasnot a military alliance. Furthermore, Hitler had not concluded it with the idea ofunleashing a war. Hitler’s striving and the striving of the Reich Foreign Minister,von Ribbentrop, but also that of Field Marshal Göring in the unofficial diplomaticcourse of action taken from 23 August to 1 September 1939, continued to befocussed, taking advantage of Moscow’s change of course, on attaining amicablerelations with Britain and a settlement with Poland, as the Reich government had

2) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, vol. III, pp. 96-124; I. Colvin, Vansittartin Office, p. 336; K. Zentner, Illustrierte Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges, p. 69.

3) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 91.4) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 124.5) A. Seidl, Die Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und der Sowjetunion 1939 - 1941, p. 195.6) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 158.


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informed Stalin as well as Mr. Chamberlain.7) Even the fact that Ribbentrop hadasked the Soviets to mass troops along the Polish frontier is merely to be understoodin that this display was to induce Poland into yielding and thus to an amicablesettlement.8) Before the beginning of war, there were neither any plans forcombined action against Poland, nor did the Reich government endeavour, untilBritain’s and France’s declaration of war against Germany, to persuade the USSRinto joining the German side in a conflict with Poland. These facts refute thehypothesis that the Non-Aggression Pact had as its aim, on Germany’s part, thedestruction of Poland or the unleashing of a war in general.9)

“For the sake of historical truth, one must clearly bear in mind that Stalin’sfirst attempt to chum-up on 10 March [1939], was well taken note of inGermany and, besides, was correctly understood, but that there was noreciprocal response from the German side. Only after the Anglo-Frenchguarantee declaration to Poland and after the Polish excesses against everythingGerman does Hitler come to regard Stalin as a possible ally.” 10)

Former State Secretary Meissner explains Hitler’s motives as follows:

“At the conclusion of the Moscow Pact, Hitler was convinced, in so far asone can infer from his own demeanour and his own comments, of the necessityand of a long continuance of German-Russian co-operation, and he was readyto subordinate the ideological differences between National Socialism andBolshevism to reasons of political realism. I was witness to various discussionsduring which Hitler tried most insistently to convince leading party membersof the soundness of his decision.” 11)

In a like manner, the former Counsellor of Embassy, Hilger, stated:

“As for Hitler, I can say the following: Both when the treaties with theSoviet Union were concluded and in the subsequent few months, he appearsto have believed firmly that the German-Russian agreement not only fulfilledtheir immediate purpose but would for a long time to come form the basis fora relationship that could benefit both partners. I have reliable information tothe effect that Hitler repeatedly voiced this opinion before his closest entourage

7) B. Dahlerus, op. cit., p. 53. 8) ADAP, vol. VII, doc. 360. 9) P. Fabry, Der Hitler-Stalin Pakt 1939-1941, pp. 123-125; A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second

World War, p. 262.10) K. Zentner, op. cit., p. 66.11) O. Meißner, Staatssekretär unter Ebert, Hindenburg, Hitler, p. 514.


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in the fall of 1939. Apparently Hitler was not at that time worried by the ideathat Stalin might put a Germany weakened by the war under pressure. On thecontrary, he seemed to be convinced that Germany’s military superiority wassecured for a long time and that, for that reason alone, Stalin would feel obligedto adhere to the existing treaties.” 12)

Marching Orders of 23 August

The situation was indeed changing decisively because of the agreement. Thetreaty – which of course sealed the failure of the British-French-Soviet negotiations– was bound to produce a shock effect in the countries of the West. Hitler wastrying to take advantage of this situation by fixing on the 23 August the operationorder against Poland with the completion date of 26 August.13) Field Marshal Keitelstated in his account written in the Nuremberg IMT-prison,

“that the lifting of restrictions on troop movements towards the Polishfrontier was so timed that after marching during the hours of darkness theactions were to start in the early hours of the 26.” 14)

On the 23 August, there was only

“ordered a moving into the initial positions for the offensive on 26 August.In this connection, Hitler expressly commanded that there was to be a guaranteethat a counter-order would bring operations to a halt. This counter-order wasissued on 25 August at 18.15 p.m.” 15)

Field Marshal Milch answered at the IMT in Nuremberg to the question ofwhether he had heard about the first order to attack:

“Yes, I did know about it, i.e. that no attack was to take place, to be perfectlycorrect, but there was to be a stand-by for an attack. With that, the word ‘attack’had not yet been given. There is still a difference.” 16)

Since Hitler – just like every politician, who is in a position to do so – used to

12) G. Hilger, Wir und der Kreml, p. 290; Hilger/Meyer, The Incompatible Allies, pp. 307-308.13) IMT, vol. XXVIII, p. 389.14) W. Görlitz, Generalfeldmarschall Keitel, Verbrecher oder Offizier? p. 211.15) F. Lenz, Nie wieder München, vol. I, p. 304.16) Wilhelmstraßenprozeß, Case XI, Trial Protocol vol. 77, p. 25558.


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avail himself of the military form of pressure for achieving his goals, whileconcealing from his generals the political aim of the military measures, so thisorder from the 23 August, despite apparently being perfectly unambiguous inmilitary terms, cannot be considered as a conclusive decision, politically speaking.But in the question of war guilt, the decisive factor is the judging of the politicalobjective!

Keitel gave an account of a letter, which Hitler had sent to Mussolini at thatvery same time:

“Hitler was counting on the immediate transmission of the contents of theletter to London through his so ‘trustworthy’ Foreign Ministry. The letter wasto make clear there, in Hitler’s estimation, the earnestness of his intentions;on the other hand, it was not to divulge the actual time of military operations,so that the Poles would, in fact, be warned, but the intended tactical surpriseof the attack was maintained. By bringing forward the time schedule, Hitlerwished to accelerate, in the last analysis, the hoped-for British interventionfor averting the war, which he was certainly counting upon, and for which hewas expecting Mussolini’s support.” 17)

Hitler was probably also counting on his military decisions being transmittedto Britain – Germany, as an “open country”, was not at all protected againstespionage like the USSR – and therewith was seeking to coerce London intomaking an earnest effort for a compromise solution. Also, one must take intoconsideration that Hitler might have wanted to test how the Wehrmacht wouldfunction when put on maximum alert. In any case, and in this the statements of allpersons concerned show a large degree of unanimity, Hitler had his military orderof 23 August, taking advantage of – as already noted – the shock effect of theNon-Aggression Pact with the USSR, tied in with his political intention of inducingBritain and Poland to the negotiation table. However, this arithmetic did not workout.

Field Marshal von Manstein confirms this basic position:

“At all events, it was entirely conceivable that the military measures takenin August 1939 – despite Operation ‘Order White’ – were directed towardsincreasing political pressure on Poland. Since the summer, on orders fromHitler, work had been proceeding at feverish speed on an Ostwall – an easternequivalent of the Siegfried Line. Whole divisions, the 18th among them, weremoved to the Polish frontier in constant rotation to work on this fortificationfor several weeks at a stretch. What was the point of all this effort if Hitlerwere going to attack Poland? Even if, contrary to all his assurances, he were

17) W. Görlitz, op. cit., p. 210.


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contemplating a war on two fronts, the Ostwall would still have been quiteout of place, since the only proper action for Germany in such circumstanceswould be to attack and overwhelm Poland first while remaining on thedefensive in the west. The reverse solution – offensive action in the west anddefensive measures in the east – was quite out of the question with the presentratio of forces, especially as neither plans nor preparations for an offensive inthe west had been made. So if the construction of an Ostwall were to have anyrhyme or reason in the present situation, it could surely only be to exert pressureon Poland by placing large troop concentrations on her frontier. Even thedeployment of infantry divisions on the east bank of the Oder in the last tendays of August and the movement of the armoured and motorized divisionsinto assembly areas initially west of the river need not really have beenpreparations for an attack: they could just as well have been a form of politicalpressure.” 18)

The big let down of the 25 August was for Hitler that Mussolini did not actaccording to the spirit of his intentions. Keitel recalls from memory:

“Only then was the most profound cause of his disappointment aboutMussolini’s ‘betrayal’ revealed. He said something like: ‘Without a doubt,Britain is already informed that Italy is unwilling to render support; as ofnow, Britain’s attitude will stiffen, and [Britain] will give a boost to Poland.The political effect of my letter is exactly the reverse of my expectations’.” 14)

Mussolini, meanwhile, had a reply delivered by Ambassador Attolico to Hitleron the 25 August in the afternoon, in which he made the honouring of his allianceobligations incumbent upon unrealizable demands for supplies from Germany: 6million tons of coal, 2 million tons of steel, 7 million tons of petroleum etc.,along with 150 anti-aircraft batteries. After this kind of response, Hitler had to beprepared for the fact that Britain had been informed of Italy’s position and would,henceforth, reject every compromise even more emphatically. Indeed, straightafterwards, Hitler really did receive a telegraphic notification that Great Britainhad linked her fate with that of Poland even more closely with an extendedguarantee agreement.

The political objective of the military measures was thereby rendered invalid.The marching orders were cancelled immediately.

Hitler did not expect, nor did he want, Italy’s military participation in a conflictover Poland, but was merely interested in the political solidarity of the Axispartner. The political snub from Italy, all the more grave as Britain was notifiedright away of Italy’s absolute neutrality, did shake Hitler considerably, principally

18) E. von Manstein, Lost Victories, p. 27.


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in view of the inevitable hardening of the British position and the resultingconsequences. On the 22 August, Chamberlain had again underlined Britain’scommitment to Poland – it was not this commitment, which affected Hitler on the25 August. From the start, Hitler was aware that he could not split up the Polish-British front. All the documents relating to this matter agree on this point. He hadissued the stand-by order on 23 August knowing of these circumstances; hecountermanded it, practically under the same circumstances: Italy’s non-participation, Britain’s alliance pledge to Poland, as well as an intervention fromLondon failing to materialize. Yes, he did withdraw it, although on 23 AugustPoland had decided on “bringing a great part of the Army [3/4] up to warstrength”.19)

This state of things proves that the order from 23 August pursued the politicalaim to force negotiations with the leverage of military decision-taking loomingahead. After all, without this pressure, no negotiations had been initiated for manymonths, quite the opposite: Poland’s provocations had been increasing constantly!Henderson, also, could no longer see on 24 August

“... any hope of avoiding war unless the Polish Ambassador is instructedto apply today or at the latest tomorrow for personal interview with Hitler(which admittedly at this late hour he may well refuse to grant).” 20)

There are further indications pointing out that the marching orders from 23August were pursuing this political aim:

a) While the “Directive No 1 for the Conduct of War” of 31 August 1939 isavailable verbatim in its entirety and is, after all, quite voluminous, no writtendocument for the order to attack from the 23 August is known to exist. But in theGerman Wehrmacht it was not usual to issue such a decisive order merely verbally.

b) Hitler’s plan “Operation White” was intended for the 1 September 1939 asthe earliest date; to have brought it forward would have made many operativechanges necessary, about which, however, nothing is known to exist.

c) On 25 August, for example, the German troops on the Western frontier hadnot yet taken up their defensive grounds – this was only scheduled for the 1September. No orders are known to exist that would have meant a prematureoccupation of these defensive constructions.21)

19) “French Yellow Book”, doc. 219; Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII,doc. 238.

20) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII doc. 241.21) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 270.


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d) Whereas advance measures on an increasing scale had already been set inmotion on 18 August, the order for mobilization without public proclamationwas issued by Berlin only around midday on the 25 August.22) This camouflagedmobilization had to be undertaken in a way that could not give rise to an aggrava-tion in the foreign political field as a consequence; subsequently, was thus ar-ranged independently of the marching orders from the 23 August and, thereby,was also pursuing a different political objective – it was not joined to an order foradvance, while, on the other hand, the marching orders from the 23 August werenot linked to the camouflaged mobilization.

There was no cause, then, for Hitler to call off on the 25 August the marchingorders of 23 August, had these been meant seriously; after all, the stance of theopponents had not changed from the 23 August. If only a few days before he wasprepared to march, then he should still have marched on the 25 August. Since hedid not march, the political sincerity of the marching orders from the 23 Augusthas to be disputed. The question remains: Would Hitler also have suspended themarching orders at the last minute (this was done on the 25 August afternoon),23)

if Great Britain had not taken any action whatsoever on the 25 August? There isno unequivocal answer, since there is no proof for this hypothetical case. Theonly indication speaking in favour of a cancellation of the order, even in thisinstance, should be Hitler’s alliance offer that he made to Great Britain at middayon the 25 August. On no account could one have expected, after all, that GreatBritain take up this offer, only to have it followed the very next day by Germantroops marching into Poland. Furthermore, in no way can this last-minute offerbe interpreted as a tactical, military diversionary manoeuvre, as Britain was in noposition, anyhow, to military intervene straightaway in an invasion of Poland byGerman troops and, besides, it was to be assumed that Poland already hadknowledge of the marching orders of the Wehrmacht and thus could not be side-tracked. At any rate, Hitler told the British Ambassador, Henderson, on 25 Augustat 1.30 p.m. that he would be approaching Britain with a generous alliance offer,after having settled the German-Polish problems. That such a plan could only besuccessful after a peaceable “settlement of the German-Polish problem”, goeswithout saying. Britain was meant to help, in view of these propositions offeredby Hitler for a future German-British collaboration, to induce Poland to yield.Neither Chamberlain nor Henderson ever mentioned that Hitler had intended, or

22) IMT, vol. XXX, doc. 2353-PS, p. 263; ADAP, vol. VII, p. 253, English ed. p. 302; B. Müller-Hillebrand, Das Heer 1939-1945, vol. II, p. 15.

23) No clear documents about the precise timing of this withdrawal order have been made availableto research. See: ADAP, vol. VII, p. 470, English ed. p. 560; Nation Europa, 5/1963, “Die Legendenum Hitlers Angriffsbefehl vom 25 August 1939”.


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could have intended, a “military settlement”. These gentlemen were convinced,rather, that it was the Poles that needed to be brought to their senses and not theGermans.24)

Incidentally, Chamberlain’s biographer, K. Feiling, confirms that the BritishPrime Minister, also, had interpreted Hitler’s offer to Britain of 25 August 1939 –in spite of being aware of the military stand-by in Germany – on the understand-ing of a peaceful resolution with Poland:

“The communications with Hitler and Goering ... gave the impression,probably with intention, that it was possible to persuade Hitler to accept apeaceful and reasonable solution of the Polish question, in order to get to anAnglo-German agreement, which be continually declared to be his greatestambition.” 25)

The Activities of the British Governmentfrom 25-28 August

The reaction from the British government to the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact and the news that Italy would stay away in case of a conflict wassuch that it could only lead to an intensification. Instead of trying for negotiationson the conflictual matters needing to be dealt with – which most certainly wouldhave prompted Hitler to withdraw the marching orders immediately, since “Hitlerdid not want war with Poland” 26) – London hardened positions by extending theguarantee to Poland, inclusive of vast contingencies, and failed to initiatemediation. The British government judged the German-Soviet Non-AggressionPact incorrectly as a war pact and got “ into position”, i.e. prepared for an armedconflict.27) On the 23 August 1939, the Chief Political Advisor to the ForeignSecretary, Lord Vansittart, “referring to the statement about the Cabinet meeting”,told the Hungarian Minister in London:

“Britain would not yield in any event. Even if violence were not offered tothe sovereignty and territorial integrity of Poland, Britain would immediatelymobilize and go into action.” 28)

24) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., pp. 272, 275 seq.25) K. Feiling, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, pp. 416-417.26) C. Tansill, Back Door to War, p. 510.27) E. Raczynski, In Allied London, p. 24.28) ADAP, vol. VII, doc. 238, English ed. doc. 236.


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Winston Churchill writes impressively in his memoirs about these militarymeasures, which were taken both by the British leadership and the Dominiongovernments and the Colonies at the news of the German-Soviet Non-AggressionPact.29) It was a question of a world-wide mobilization – against Germany, not forinstance (also) against the Soviet Union. Therefore, not morals andhumanitarianism could have been London’s motives. London failed to take intoaccount that it was only the British-Soviet military negotiations which movedHitler to come to an arrangement with the Soviet Union. One may acceptextenuating circumstances for the British reaction to the 23 August – from theblame of having provoked the Stalin-Hitler Pact really in the first place, Londoncannot be acquitted. The British reaction made the situation even more hopelessand emboldened those powers that had an interest in a military conflict againstGermany. Peaceful means of reconciliation were not at all considered.27)

On 26 August, on Hitler’s advice, Ambassador Henderson took the Germanalliance offer of 25 August to London. There he was detained until 5.00 p.m. ofthe 28 August, a time span, which led to a “stagnation” of the talks.30) When onthat 28 August Henderson presented to Hitler at 10.30 p.m. the British reply tohis alliance offer to Britain and to his request for assisting him in settling theGerman-Polish differences (from the 25 August), Hitler was bound to believethat the British government had utilized the three days for intensive talks withWarsaw and had influenced Poland to negotiate now, under the patronage of GreatBritain and France. Emphasizing that the situation was “extremely urgent”, Hitlerwas informed that the British government would be ready,

“to proceed as soon as practicable to such discussions... His Majesty’sGovernment have already received a definite assurance from the PolishGovernment that they are prepared to enter into discussions on this basis.” 31)

In expectation of this mediation, thus confirmed, and of the now existingPolish readiness for negotiations, Hitler would now draw up his negotiationproposal, which he handed to Ambassador Henderson on 29 August.

Hitler, however, had no knowledge of what had really taken place duringthose three days (26-28 August) in London. He was unaware that Lord Halifaxhad not taken advantage of these three days for making an effort at mediation,and that he had this, the most important démarche before the outbreak of war thatwas forwarded to Hitler on 28 August, falsified with intent to defraud. The Polish

29) W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. I, book I, “The Gathering Storm”, p. 308.30) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 355 ; N. Henderson, Failure of

a Mission, pp. 259-262.31) ibid., doc. 447; “German White Book” No. 2, doc. 463.


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readiness for negotiations, as asserted, did not at all exist and, furthermore, theBritish government was not willing to mediate, as there was now, according tothe statement made by the British Foreign Secretary to the Polish Ambassador onthe 25 August “any attempt to patch matters up... out of the question.” 32) Thisdeception by Halifax, hitherto veiled in various ways, had also not been realizedfor a long time by historians, since they too had been fooled by several falsifieddocuments, or rather, documents based on false reports (one of them in theDocuments on British Foreign Policy, the others in the “Polish White Book”, the“British Blue Book”, and the “French Yellow Book”).

On 28 August Halifax fabricated an alleged telephone message coming fromKennard at 4.00 p.m., the subject matter being the Polish readiness to negotiate,and smuggled it into the British documents. For the historian today, it makes itsappearance as doc. 420 in the Documents on British Foreign Policy. This“document” cannot be genuine and it is thanks to the historical contribution of aGerman man to have discovered this, twenty years after the end of the war, and tohave drawn the historian’s attention to it.33)

Step by step proof:1. The “British Blue Book”, published immediately after the start of the war,

contains no evidence for this Polish assent for negotiations, although PrimeMinister Chamberlain asserted to the House of Commons on 1 September 1939that the “British Blue Book” (which, strangely enough, had been almost fullycompleted already before the outbreak of the German-Polish conflict) 34) includedall the important documents.

2. The “Polish White Book”, put together by the Polish government in exile atthe beginning of 1940 in Britain, has under No. 96 a notification from Beck to hisAmbassadors in London and Paris of 28 August 1939:

“The British Ambassador has consulted me on the question of an answerto M. Hitler. I agreed to inform the German government that Poland was readyto negotiate, and asked him to define what the British government understoodby the conception ‘international guarantee’.

Please treat the entire question of the consultation as strictly confidential.”

This “document”, too has evidently been fabricated subsequently, “inconsultation” with the British government: Beck could never have chosen, on 28August, this kind of formulation for the British government, because a

32) E. Raczynski, In Allied London, p. 24.33) F. Lenz, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 392-397.34) “British Blue Book” – The Government Blue Book: Documents concerning German-Polish

Relations and the Outbreak of Hostilities between Great Britain and Germany on September 3,1939, doc. 105.


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“consultation” about the note to Hitler simply does not correspond to the facts.But to mention this misleading basis in this “note”, moreover, not only once buttwice, makes the falsification even more obvious. – Halifax had the British notepresented in Berlin, without having notified Poland beforehand, never mind askingfor requests to be conveyed to Hitler.

3. On 27 August, Lord Halifax was sent this message at 10.46 p.m. fromWarsaw:

“Mr Beck has just informed me (Kennard) that in view of the nature ofHerr Hitler’s language regarding Poland in his conversation with Sir N.Henderson (25 August) the Polish government have decided on fullmobilization which is to take place at once.” 35)

Only on the 28 August (one day later) at 7.00 p.m. – three hours after theostensible Polish assent for negotiation! (doc. 420 – 4.00 p.m.) – and only afterthe arrival of a further communiqué on mobilization measures from Warsaw (doc.424) did he check back,

“I am at a loss to know what precisely in Hitler’s language to Sir N.Henderson led the Polish Government last night to take these measures ofmobilization.” 36)

Halifax did not endeavour to check, how the Polish government was toreconcile these measures with the assent for negotiations, given (allegedly)meantime.

4. The manifold evidence in the British documents, showing the intensiveefforts made by the British Foreign Secretary for gaining a favourable “worldopinion” with regard to the Polish attitude,37) sheds light on the drastic remedythat was used eventually – the deliberate false report – by a man, who haddescribed, since the conclusion of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, “anyattempt to patch matters up” as being “out of the question”.38)

“Colonel Beck was apprehensive of negotiations, not because they seemedhopeless, but for fear lest Hitler really consented to a compromise, and alsolest Britain perhaps show an inclination to impose the compromise on Po-land.” 39)

35) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 391.36) ibid., doc. 436.37) ibid., doc. 4, 280, 357, 372, 539, 576; “French Yellow Book”, doc. 218, 222.38) E. Raczynski, op. cit., p. 24.39) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 308.


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“There was no chance of extracting concessions from the Poles once thedanger of war was removed, and the British knew it.” 40)

5. Halifax arranged the facts according to his objective:a) Although Henderson, as already mentioned, was staying in London for

three days, Halifax asked Poland for their consent for negotiations only then (28August – 2.00 p.m.), when it was quite certain that Poland would not be able toreply before Henderson’s return flight to Berlin. It was not possible, within twohours, that Kennard could have been informed, could have had an audience withBeck and to have already forwarded his answer to the Foreign Office. The (alleged)answer, however, is already back again in London in two hours – at 4.00 p.m.(doc. 420). Kennard’s task stated clearly (doc. 411) to “endeavour to see” M.Beck, which was in accordance with diplomatic practice – though this could neverhave facilitated such a speedy reply. The actual answer from Beck to this Britishstep was then only made on the 31 August.41) This delaying, on the other hand,would appear inexplicable, if Beck had answered immediately – already on 28August – as the “Polish White Book” doc. 96 and the British doc. 420 claim.

b) The German government was to be given the impression that the Polishconsent for negotiations was available unconditionally. For this it required anambassador, who himself believed this to be so. Now, Henderson was critical,having urgently demanded, still on 24 August, the immediate dispatch of a Polishplenipotentiary.42) He now was sent to Berlin at 5.00 p.m. on the 28 August,convinced that the British government had been sounding things out in Warsawand was expecting, any minute, the Polish consent for negotiations. This was thereason why Halifax did not give him the British note to take to Hitler, but sent itto him in a telegram one hour later. Once he was back in Berlin, he could neitherquestion nor check his Foreign Secretary’s assertion that the Polish consent fornegotiations had arrived in the meantime.

c) The general disposition within the three days (26-28 August) was absolutelystrange during that critical time and has never been explained.

6. Ambassador Kennard was received by Beck in the evening of the 28 August.Only in the early morning of the 29 August was the British leadership to learn ofthe outcome of the talks.43) Thus, they could not have been in possession of thisanswer already on the 28 August at 4.00 p.m. For the rest, Kennard did not haveany comment on the Polish consent for negotiations, nor could he intimate a“new course” in Warsaw, and he could neither give an indication that one was

40) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 272.41) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 609.42) ibid., doc. 241.43) ibid., doc. 456: telegram out Warsaw 3.44 a.m. – in London 6.00 a.m., 29 August.


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now awaiting Hitler’s diplomatic reaction. But on the contrary, it was Beck toadvise Kennard that for tonight a fait accompli was to be expected in Danzig, “inthe event of not receiving a satisfactory reply” from the Danzig Senate. ThereuponKennard felt himself obligated to warn Beck.43)

7. On the 28 August at 2.00 p.m.,44) Halifax had asked Kennard in Warsaw toconvey the outcome of his talk with Beck not only to London, but also,simultaneously, to Berlin, Paris and Rome. In the reply, (allegedly) transmittedtwo hours later, Kennard “confirms” (allegedly) the implementation of this task.The subsequent smuggling in of this telegram45) is also proved in that in realityneither Henderson (Berlin) nor Phipps (Paris) nor Loraine (Rome) learnt about it.Also, none of the Polish Ambassadors in these cities ever received this piece ofnews from Warsaw. All of Henderson’s urging upon Lipski, the Polish Ambassadorin Berlin, right into the last hours of peace, turned into the realization, or ratherproof, that the latter was so tightly restrained by instructions from Warsaw to thepoint that he was not to display any interest in any note whatsoever from theReich government and was not authorized to enter any definite negotiations.

So that this fraudulent manoeuvre should not be noticed by the nations of theworld at the start of the war, the concluding part of the task was not printed in the“British Blue Book” (doc. 73).

8. On the 28 August at 6.00 p.m., Lord Halifax telegraphed Kennard 46) that hehas informed the Polish Ambassador in London, Raczynski, of the substance ofthe British note sent at 2.00 p.m. to Warsaw, with the request for the Polish consentfor negotiations. Continuing, Halifax mentions: “If a favourable answer to this isreceived in time...” Halifax could really only put this passage into this telegramat 6.00 p.m., if the Polish consent for negotiations was not in hand at this stage.So, this doc. 420, according to which this consent had already come in two hoursearlier, can therefore not be genuine.

Halifax, in his deceitful conduct, had made a slip – just two hours aftersmuggling in the false note.

This has likewise occurred to the editors of the Documents on British ForeignPolicy, because they provided doc. 430 with a footnote (5) that “this telegramwas evidently drafted before the receipt of No. 420”, yet, an explanation for thisthey did not give.

9. Halifax informed his Ambassador in Warsaw on the 29 August retrospecti-vely on the kind of talk with Raczynski (28 August).47) Halifax stated that

44) ibid., doc. 411.45) ibid., doc. 420.46) ibid., doc. 430.47) ibid., doc. 497.


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Raczynski “appeared to be somewhat out of touch with his government [and] didnot have any comment to make”. No mentioning that perchance he had announcedor confirmed the Polish consent for negotiations. Neither was he interested toknow what Britain meant by an “international guarantee”. On the other hand,Raczynski did inquire about the British reply to Hitler and

“whether His Majesty’s Government would make any demand for a truce.I replied that there was nothing in the reply to this effect, but that His Majesty’sAmbassador in Berlin might be asked to impress on Herr Hitler the necessityfor the cessation of provocation if discussions were to commence. CountRaczynski thought that this would be helpful, as it was important to avoid anyimpression of weakness.” 47)

Halifax had made no demands of Poland for a truce, but he did, on the otherhand, name Berlin as the address which had to be influenced for provocation toend. Neither in his conversation with Raczynski nor in his note to Warsaw48) didHalifax enjoin the Poles to talks with Germany, but instead he underlined:

“Failure to secure a just settlement of German-Polish differences wouldruin hopes of Anglo-German understanding, and might lead to war, with un-told suffering and loss to many countries.” 48)

In view of this and similar statements from the British Foreign Secretary atthis stage, the following sentence could only have been written for the files:

“His Majesty’s Government have made representations to the Polish Gov-ernment that they should express willingness to enter into discussions on thisbasis.” 48)

Truth is: Poland’s conduct was once again sanctioned unreservedly for thepast, the present and the future.

10. For an explanation, what the British government understands by an“international guarantee”, Minister for Foreign Affairs Beck only asked on the31 August49), which he would not have done, if

a) he had already (according to doc. 420) asked about it on the 28 August,b) Halifax had answered this question, which the Poles (according to doc.

420) apparently considered to be urgent, and which Beck called on the 31 August,“this fundamental question [of] the Polish government”, in the meantime.

48) ibid., doc. 431: 28 August 1939, 6.00 p.m.49) ibid., doc. 609.


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Halifax should have answered this question post haste, having, at the sametime, made Hitler aware of the “matter of the utmost urgency”.50) If one imputesdoc. 420 (28 August – 4.00 p.m. – Polish consent for negotiations, plus the questionabout the “international guarantee”) to be genuine, one must then conclude thatHalifax was working towards war, because he refused to give the Polish partneran answer to this pressing question. Either way, this doc. 420 proves Halifax’spolicy for war.

It is most strange to find that precisely those places in the doc. 609 (Beck’sreply of the 31 August), which could give information about whether Beck’senquiry (“international guarantee”) concerns a question asked for the first timeor whether it was just being reiterated, are not printed, since, according to theeditors of the Documents on British Foreign Policy, “the text is here uncertain”.

11. On the 28 August, Halifax transmits, likewise at 6.00 p.m., the gist of theBritish note to Hitler (doc. 431) to the Ambassadors in Washington, Warsaw,Paris and Rome. He did state, it is true, that His Majesty’s government had madeendeavours for the Polish consent for negotiations (which factually is correct, butthe Ambassadors had the extremely late stage of this attempt kept from them).The telegrams, however, contain no comment about the (ostensibly received twohours before) Polish consent, which should have been announced, after all theincidents and the months of refusal to negotiate from Warsaw, as a sensationprecisely in this telegram. Only a day later, on the 29 August at 10.50 a.m.,51) didHalifax inform his Ambassadors in Washington and Rome – of all people onlythese! – that in view of the Polish consent for negotiations having arrived in themeantime, the British note to Hitler was altered. This communication was a lie,since

a) the Polish consent for negotiations, as has been shown, was not at all inhand,

b) the note to Hitler was not at all altered, but instead of giving it to Hendersonto take with him to Berlin, as everyone must have expected, it was forwarded tohim by telegram,

c) it is not comprehensible why – with Beck supposedly having agreed tonegotiate at 4.00 p.m. – Halifax should not have added this important communi-cation to the already outgoing dispatches at 6.00 p.m.

Lord Halifax undertook a further step towards war on this 28 August: Early at9.30 a.m., he was informed by the Chargé d’Affaires of the British embassy inBerlin, Ogilvie-Forbes, of the outcome of a talk between Field Marshal Göringand the Swedish industrialist, Birger Dahlerus, whose good offices for mediation

50) ibid., doc. 426.51) ibid., doc. 460.


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between Germany and Britain had been called upon by Göring already since July1939. Point 5 of this report to the Foreign Office reads:

“Field-Marshal Göring, after consultation with Herr Hitler, requests thatthe British reply should neither be published nor communicated to Parliamentuntil Herr Hitler has had time to comment on it and possibly suggest modifi-cations.” 52)

In the afternoon of this self-same day – Henderson was on his flight back toGermany – Halifax conveyed to his Ambassadors in Washington, Warsaw, Parisand Rome the gist of the British reply to Hitler 53) – without the additionalremark that the Polish consent for negotiations was in hand. However, Kennardin Warsaw received a separate advance notice telling him, among other things,54)

that the Polish Ambassador in London, Raczynski, had already been apprisedof the substance of the reply made to Hitler – but was asked not to transmit it toWarsaw in cypher. While it was already unusual to steer this British reply alongtwo different routes to Warsaw (it would have sufficed for Raczynski to havereceived just a copy for his own information), so it had to be even more unusualto induce the Polish Ambassador into an action that was quite uncommon – andnot only could cause a public sensation, but was bound to do so. For the recipientof this information (Raczynski) did thereby not consider himself obliged tomaintain secrecy; the receivers of his information, on the other hand (thejournalists), naturally took up this piece of news immediately and made a bigsplash of this “sensation”. These journalists (“the press”) could hardly fail tonotice the sphere of responsibility, the Prime Minister, who was carrying theresponsibility of the government, on the other hand, knew nothing of thearrangement. Inquiries into the source of the information would have led, infact, to Raczynski but, as a result of the now rapid succession of events, nofurther.

Again, Halifax had outplayed the “appeasement politicians” in Britain, as faras they would still have been in leading positions, but also those abroad. Howthis manipulation even outraged Mr. Chamberlain – shown clearly in letters tohis sister – though without recognizing the initiator and, by that time, no longerbeing one of the “appeasement politicians”, is attested by his speech in the Houseof Commons on the 29 August 1939:

52) ibid., doc. 402.53) ibid., doc. 431: 6.00 p.m.54) ibid., doc. 430.


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“There is one thing that I would like to say at this moment with regard tothe press. I think it is necessary once more to urge the press to exercise theutmost restraint at a time when it is quite possible for a few thoughtlesswords in a paper, perhaps not of particular importance, to wreck the wholeof the efforts which are being made by the Government to obtain asatisfactory solution. I have heard that an account purporting to be a verbatimdescription of the communication of the British government to Herr Hitlerwas telegraphed to another country last night or this morning. Such anaccount could only be an invention from beginning to end. It is, I think,very unfortunate that journalists in the exercise of their profession shouldtake such responsibilities upon themselves, responsibilities which affect notonly themselves, but the inhabitants, perhaps, of all the countries in theworld…

I should be glad if I could disclose to the House the fullest informationas to the contents of the communications exchanged with Herr Hitler, buthon. members will understand that in a situation of such extreme delicacy,and when issues so grave hang precariously in the balance, it is not in thepublic interest to publish these confidential communications or to commenton them in detail at this stage.” 55)

The French government, too, did not keep, on the 27-28 August, to their promiseto Hitler of maintaining secrecy on the exchange of letters between the Chancellorof the Reich and Daladier, but gave the press fresh ammunition to play with in theform of possible distortions and aggravations.56) Thereupon Hitler felt compelledto publish his exchange of letters with the French Prime Minister.

The Polish government knew, though, what this “guide line” 57) indicated,and in what direction the leading forces in Britain and France were heading.Furthermore, since the version that was sent on to Raczynski and subsequentlypublished by the British press did not contain the passage that the Polish consentfor negotiations was in hand, whereas, on the other hand, it was precisely onthe basis of this passage Hitler was persuaded to agree to negotiations at theearliest possible moment, Poland was bound to regard it as a cause forintensifying their provocations. Just how dishonestly Halifax was pursuing thisgame can also be seen by the fact that he had not informed Warsaw of havingasserted to Hitler Poland’s readiness for negotiations and that on Germany’spart negotiations would be welcomed. This was all the more serious, since, atthe same time, Halifax was passing on to Poland further alarming military news,

55) “British Blue Book”, doc. 77, also see F. Lenz, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 392-398.56) ADAP, vol. VII, doc. 366.57) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 539.


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apparently gleaned from German resistance people (28 August) 58), and he statedon the 29 August that he

“could not take the responsibility of advising the Polish Government againstany action which they consider necessary for their security.” 59)

The result was the Polish general mobilization, for which London made noreproach to the Polish partner, not even subsequently. Count Szembek apprisedon the 29 August at 4.00 p.m. the British and French Ambassadors of the just thendecided Polish general mobilization, which, “however, only completed the militarymeasures already taken at an earlier stage”. 60) The Polish government referredspecifically, as pertaining to this step, to the warning, forwarded from Londonthe day before, about German troop movements and about Germany’s intention“to make a surprise attack on Poland”.60) The general mobilization was to havebeen announced early in the morning on the following day. Because of thediplomatic exchanges between London and Warsaw it was postponed for severalhours, until the afternoon on the 30 August (2.30 p.m.).

The Meeting between Hitler and Hendersonon 29 August

Hitler, meanwhile, had learnt through the intelligence service about the furtherPolish mobilization on the 28 August and about the concentration of Polish unitsat the border,61) but also, in addition, about the internal decree for a generalmobilization taken in the afternoon of the 29 August. Hitler did not even try tohide from British Ambassador Henderson the fact that he had such far-reachingsecret sources to Warsaw.62) Cognizant of these military and political happeningsbehind the scenes in Warsaw that required immediate German counter-measures,Hitler, two and three quarters of an hour later, at 6.45 p.m. asked for, in his reply

58) ibid., doc. 435, 491.– Halifax refers to a “first-class German source”. The suggestion that Dahlerushad transmitted this information, after having received it from Göring (footnote 1, doc. 435),would be unlikely, since Göring would hardly have presented the Swedish mediator with operativedetails of a planned German offensive against Poland. On the other hand, it seems reasonable tosuppose that the British embassy in Berlin could have camouflaged in this way their real sourcein their communication. As it is, according to doc. 491, another “first-class German source” ismentioned.

59) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 495.60) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 329.61) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 424.62) ibid., doc. 493.


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to the British government, “in consideration of the urgency of the fact that twofully mobilized armies were standing face to face and the Germans living in Polandwere being subjected to atrocious and barbarous ill-treatment” *), a Polishrepresentative invested with plenipotentiary powers to arrive for the 30 August.Hitler stated specifically in this communication that Germany had no intention ofattacking vital Polish interests or of questioning the existence of an independentPolish State. At the same time, Hitler gave to understand that proposals for asolution would be drawn up immediately.

But what was the attitude and behaviour of the British Ambassador at thisaudience on the 29 August? Had he been inspired by the resistance faction fromthe German Foreign Office, who were trying hard, during this “August crisis”, toprevent “another Munich or Prague”? 63) State Secretary von Weizsäcker had ofteninfluenced him in this way.64) Henderson was well aware of the gravity of thesituation and of the importance of this meeting with Hitler, i.e. of Hitler’s responseto the delayed British note. He himself admitted, in view of his meeting withHitler the day before, that he was not “without hope” that Hitler would let reasonprevail. Nevertheless, before these talks on the 29 August, that is without knowinghow Hitler was going to react at all, and how the German reply to the British noteof the 28 August would turn out, he “had decided after careful priorconsideration”,65) to let himself “go with Hitler” and to shout at the GermanChancellor, since “Hitler is an abnormality [and it] might do good [to] be given adose of his own medicine”.65) Henderson elaborated on these talks in a privateletter to Lord Halifax:

“So when he gave me the opportunity on a minor point, namely our utterdisregard for Germans murdered in Poland, I did fairly let him have it...

He [Hitler] did not react in any noticeable way, but I have no doubt that itwas a disagreeable and unusual surprise...

I must add that after the worst of it I started to get up to go, but he wouldnot budge.” 65)

In another letter about these talks Henderson adds:

“I therefore proceeded to out-shout Herr Hitler. I told him that I would notlisten to such language [reference: the murdering of Minority Germans inPoland] from him or anybody. Such a state [sic: ‘statement’?] was intolerableand an example of all his exaggeration...

*) “German White Book” No 2, doc. 466, 464.63) IMT, vol. XII, p. 245.64) E.von Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, p. 251.65) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 565.


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He made no response and I continued to use the same forcible languagethroughout the interview...” 66)

Ribbentrop recorded that Henderson had even banged the table.67) With regardto the conduct of the British Ambassador, three different points need to beestablished:

1. The assertion made by Hitler – this “minor point”! –“that I or His Majesty’s Government did not care a row of pins whether

Germans were slaughtered in Poland or not” was factually correct. After all, Britainreally was not concerned about that but had instead, already in spring of 1939,given Poland expressly to understand that, regarding the guarantee, they wouldignore the question of the aggressor.68) During these decisive days, too, the Britishgovernment had not even made any enquiries into the German grievances, letalone induce the Poles to yield, although, undoubtedly, they were fully informedby their secret service sources about the prevailing conditions.

Anyone who takes – “after careful prior consideration”! – factually correctstatements as an opportunity to “shout” henceforth during a politically importantdiscussion, puts himself in the wrong and pronounces himself guilty.

2. The persecution of the Volksdeutschen [Minority Germans] in Poland, whichHenderson now trivialized as a “minor point”, had been commented on by him intelegrams during previous days as follows:

On the 21 August to Halifax:

“... fact remains that there are now probably at least 10,000 refugees inGermany, that German institutions are systematically being closed, Germanworkmen dismissed, etc., etc.

It must be realized that the conflict has now gone beyond Danzig. Patiencecan be urged on Hitler in respect of the Free City but it would serve the oppo-site purpose to preach it in respect of the persecution of the German minority.I am not attempting to apportion blame but to state facts. For a settlement ofthe minority question direct and immediate contact between Warsaw and Berlinseems to me essential.” 69)

Also on 21 August to Halifax:

“I had tea with a friend of mine yesterday (X or if you like W) [meant wasresistance-adherent E. von Weizsäcker] and he earnestly harped on immediateaction. While he admitted press exaggeration he assured me that what wastaking place was a form of enforced German migration from Poland, where

66) ibid., doc. 508.67) J.von Ribbentrop, Zwischen London und Moskau, p. 191.68) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. IV, doc. 584.69) ibid., vol. VII doc. 112.


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no Germans were being allowed to find a living. That is the urgent question. Ispoke of patience and he said at once the very mention of that word wouldsend Hitler into a frenzy. The crux of the question today is not Danzig but theminorities…

The Times correspondent here has just told me that he telephoned yester-day to his opposite number in Warsaw who told him that the Poles were being‘incredibly foolish’.” 70)

On the 24 August to Halifax:

“Herr Hitler’s reply clearly indicates that the immediate question is not somuch Danzig and the Corridor, which by implication can wait for a latersolution, as the persecution of the German minority…

…there is no doubt that there is much ground for German complaints inthis respect. The expropriation law referred to in the Warsaw telegram no.271 is to me, I submit, the basic indication of a very understandable but equallyinopportune effort to get [rid of] the German population in Poland under coverof guarantees of the Western Powers.” 71)

On the 28 August, Henderson receives a circular dispatch from Halifax, whichwas sent simultaneously to Washington, Warsaw, Paris and Rome:

“His Majesty’s Government agree that one of the principal dangers in theGerman-Polish situation is reports of the treatment of minorities.” 72)

Thus Henderson had been put in the picture about the state of affairs by quitedissimilar and trusted informants of his. That he should then choose to trivializeas a “minor point” precisely this of all subject matters and to take it as anopportunity for provoking the Head of the German government, makes the intendedpurpose of his provocation even more obvious and irresponsible.

3. To illuminate even more thoroughly the previously given explanations forHenderson’s conduct during his talk with Hitler on the 29 August, one should callto mind the atmosphere in which the talk between Hitler and Henderson hadtaken place the day before, on the 28 August late in the evening. Henderson himselfwrote of it as follows:

“At 10.30, fortified by half a bottle of Champagne, I drove down theWilhelmstrasse to the main entrance of the Reichskanzlei. A good many peoplewere waiting outside the Embassy and a considerable crowd outside the

70) ibid., doc. 117.71) ibid., doc. 219.72) ibid., doc. 431.


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Chancery. No hostility so far as I could see, absolute silence, possiblyuneasiness.

I was received by a guard of honour in full state as if I had been presentingmy letters of credence. I was ushered in at once, Ribbentrop being in attendanceand the inevitable Dr Schmidt. The Chancellor looked well, was absolutelycalm and normal. No fireworks or tirades of any kind…

Hitler registered no emotion on reading the German text [of the Britishnote]...

I am not unhopeful that Hitler’s answer may not be too unreasonable...The general atmosphere was quite friendly even on Ribbentrop’s part...Another point in my conversation was Hitler’s insistence on the value to

Britain of German friendship.” 73)

In the face of Hitler’s composure, Henderson’s behaviour on the evening ofthe 29 August can only be described as irresponsible provocation, and it isirrelevant as to whether the British Ambassador was acting on his own accord, onthe orders of his government, on the advice of the war-mongers in London orwhether he was lending his ear to the whisperings of the German resistance-adherents in the Foreign Office. It is worth observing that Henderson had nosuccess with this, because Hitler “made no response” and “would not budge”.

Collaboration between London and Warsaw from 29 to 31 August 1939

Whether it was Henderson, as is claimed in the “French Yellow Book” underNo. 285 and No. 287, or another British or French diplomat, who passed on toParis false information concerning Hitler’s demands (all of the Corridor, EastUpper Silesia) made during the talks with Hitler on the 28 August, is an openquestion. All the same, this example also shows clearly, how foreign forces, justin the last days of peace, had been adding high-handedly, but with the encourage-ment and safeguarding from their government, to the powder-keg for war.74)

Even more decisive, however, was to be the conduct of the British government.It fully backed their Ambassador Henderson in his talks with Hitler on the 29August. On top of this: The Foreign Office informed the French Ambassador inLondon, Corbin, on 29 August, in an equally inflammatory way, about the meetingbetween Hitler and Henderson on 28 August. The reason why this is not excusable

73) ibid., doc. 501.74) F. Lenz, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 420 - 421.


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is precisely because during this discussion Hitler never did give, and never couldhave given, a reply to the British note, since he had only just received it. There isalso another reason making this inexcusable: In this communication to Corbinreferences were included, which were deliberately war-mongering:

“After adding Silesia to his former claims, the Chancellor gave clearly tounderstand that what remained of Poland could not count upon an indepen-dent future...

He let it be understood that he would negotiate with Poland only if hewere sure in advance that the Polish Government would accede to all hiswishes.” 75)

It is to be gathered from the Documents on British Foreign Policy that it wasHenderson who sent the false information to London.76) Whether this is true, mustremain an open question; it is possible that Henderson had received secretinstructions to act in such a way that the German-British talks, and consequentlyGermany’s efforts about Poland, were bound to fail. All the same, Henderson didnot report anything about these alleged demands from Hitler to his Frenchcounterpart in Berlin, Coulondre.77) In the German documents of the ForeignMinistry is, in any case, not one single reference to these alleged demands fromHitler.78) These documents, in this instance, would merit all the more trustconsidering they were published by the victors. Yet, notwithstanding whosebrainchild was Hitler’s alleged demands (“all of the Corridor and East UpperSilesia”): Halifax was the one who went beyond this, spreading information withever more aggravating emphasis, without any documentary proof whatsoever.Moreover, he knew that the Polish Foreign Minister was

“…most anxious to know the upshot of Herr Hitler’s remarks by midday[of the 28 August].” 79)

Besides, he knew that Beck had already taken “Hitler’s language” as groundsfor the Polish mobilization.80) Chamberlain, likewise, spiced the communicationto Paris with the purposeful reasoning:

“The Führer cannot fail to realize the ‘disgust’ which has been provokedin the whole civilized world by the conclusion by Germany of an agreement

75) “French Yellow Book”, doc. 293.76) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 450.77) R. Coulondre, De Staline à Hitler, p. 296: footnote 1.78) ADAP, vol. VII, doc. 384.79) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 461.80) ibid., doc. 391.


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with a Power, which, on the very day before this agreement, was regarded byGermany as her worst enemy.” 75)

Chamberlain did not ask to consider how much “disgust in the civilized world”the British and French political efforts over many months, which were to effectan expansionist military alliance with the USSR directed against Central Europe,had aroused. Such pangs of conscience the British leadership at the time did notsuffer.

The attempt by Lord Halifax 81) to play through to the end the deceitfulmanoeuvre with the British note to Hitler on 28 August and, for his part, to buildin additional provocations, is demonstrated anew by this communication toCorbin82), but also in his subsequent conduct: Notwithstanding the, in the meantime,confidentially to London transmitted information about the already decreed Polishgeneral mobilization and, notwithstanding that Hitler’s reply of 29 August was inaccordance with London’s expectations from Berlin, i.e. the request for “immediatetalks” – “the British government refused to be in a hurry”.83)

Not once did they – not even at this stage – make the Polish consent fornegotiations a condition for British assistance. Henderson outlined correctly thestate of affairs, when he wrote to his Secretary of State on 29 August:

“It is not without interest that whereas every other diplomat has asked tosee me I have so far no sign of any interest whatsoever from the PolishAmbassador, though my relations with him personally are excellent.” 84)

“If we allow the latter [Poland] to talk all the time of their ‘amour propre’,prestige and signs of weakening, we shall not be guiltless of some of theresponsibility for disaster.” 73)

The British Ambassador in Warsaw, Kennard, on the other hand, was of theopinion:

“... that it would be impossible to induce the Polish Government to sendColonel Beck or any other representative immediately to Berlin to discuss asettlement on the basis proposed by Herr Hitler. They would certainly soonerfight and perish rather than submit to such humiliation, especially after theexamples of Czecho-Slovakia, Lithuania and Austria.” 85)

81) One may recall his words from 25 August: “…any attempt to patch matters up had been out ofthe question”. See: E. Raczynski, op. cit., p. 24.

82) “French Yellow Book”, doc. 293.83) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 340.84) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 470.85) ibid., doc. 512: 30 August 1939.


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This point of view from Kennard did not at all refer to the short notice of theGerman proposal or its contents, had he, after all, already on the 26 August, toldhis Under-Secretary of State, Cadogan:

“I am sorry that I cannot agree with Henderson’s proposal that Lipskishould seek an interview with Hitler...

Had Lipski been able to see Weizsäcker something might have been donebut for Lipski or Beck to seek an interview with Hitler or Ribbentrop wouldbe too much like Canossa.” 86)

Kennard did not keep this opinion a secret from the Polish government officials.89)

Furthermore, all throughout this decisive month, he never even once gave a strongwarning to his government about Poland’s mulish attitude. Yet he was as muchaware as his American colleague Biddle of the Polish fondness for war.87)

It is true, Kennard did occasionally convey Lord Halifax’s repeated remindersthat Poland was to conduct herself in such a way that she would not take up theposition of an aggressor, as this could have a negative effect in world opinion,88)

yet he thought it quite appropriate to try to convince his Foreign Secretary thatPoland’s action was right. Kennard also knew quite well that it was useful forPoland, who “saw her vital interests in Danzig threatened”, to negotiate about aninternational guarantee protecting those interests, but with his stance he wasreinforcing Beck’s determination that if officially invited to go “to Berlin, hewould of course not go.” 89) Kennard was further aware how anxiously Ministerfor Foreign Affairs Beck was awaiting information on steps taken by London, asPolish policies would be governed in line with them,90) yet he spared every effortto exert pressure in the direction of a peaceable settlement.

True, Kennard did point out, after the announcement of the Polish generalmobilization on the 29 August at 4.00 p.m.,

“that the word ‘mobilization’ would create the impression all over theworld that we are embarking on war.” 91)

Yet in spite of this, he, as well as his French colleague, Noël, gave this pieceof advice to the Polish Under-Secretary of State, Count Szembek:

86) ibid., doc. 357.87) Foreign Relations of the United States 1939, vol. I, p. 367.88) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 4, 280, 357, 372, 539, 576;

“French Yellow Book”, doc. 218, 222.89) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 357, 512, 608.90) ibid., vol. VII, doc. 371.91) “Polish White Book”, doc. 98.


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“...Poland should take all military measures to meet any surprise attack,but we suggested, above all, that no publicity should be given to any extrememeasures that they might feel it necessary to take.” 92)

One and a half hour later, Beck confirmed this ‘wink’ by telephone.93)

Lord Halifax limited his further activities on the 29 August to recommending,without pressurizing, a postponement of the Polish general mobilization and wassatisfied straight away with Colonel Beck’s promise to delay the posting ofmobilization notices for “a few hours”. For the rest, Halifax was supplying thePolish government constantly with “secret information from Germany”, accordingto which German troops were well on the way to attack Poland from all sides.94)

At 11.55 p.m. Halifax ordered his Ambassador in Warsaw to clarify that, althoughthe German reply “does not appear to close every door”, he could not “take theresponsibility of advising the Polish Government against any action which theyconsider necessary for their security”.95) With that statement, he thus condoned,already on the very same day, the Polish general mobilization and was clearlycontributing to furthering a warlike development.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Beck, complained on the evening of the 29August – that is, at a time when Warsaw, because of the British delaying tactics,neither knew the contents of the German basis for negotiations nor the deadlinelimitation – to Kennard not about the urgency behind the German readiness fortalks, but merely that Hitler would not renounce Danzig. Beck adhered to theviewpoint that the resumption of talks with Germany on the basis of the proposalsmade in March still meant war. Should Hitler within the next few hours of thisnight [29-30 August] not give a “reply [that] was positively favourable” (that is,a definite disclaimer both of Danzig and of improving the transit regulationsthrough the Corridor), then it would be necessary, so Beck warned the British andFrench Ambassadors, “to proceed with the general mobilization”.96) As this generalmobilization – especially in view of Poland’s strategic aims – constituted a decisivestep in the advancement to war, Beck’s demand clearly clarifies the question ofculpability. Considering that the Polish Ambassador in Berlin, Lipski, two dayslater called the German proposal “a sign of weakness” 97), how then would aGerman renunciation of Danzig have been evaluated on the Polish assessmentscale?

92) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 473.93) ibid., doc. 475.94) ibid., doc. 435 , 491.95) ibid., doc. 495.96) ibid., doc. 492.97) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 373.


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Every sign of “German weakness” was seen by the Polish government as a“victory”, while making sure, at the same time, that their own actions could notbe regarded as a “sign of weakness”.98) In the process, they would go to suchlengths that many times they would even incur the displeasure of prudent Britishdiplomats. In fact, the visit to Moscow by “the author of the anti-Comintern Pact”,Reich Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop, and the signing of the German-SovietNon-Aggression Pact were described in the Polish press as “a sign of weakness”and showed, “how the ground burnt under Germany’s feet”.99) The PolishAmbassador in Moscow, too, is optimistic:

“He is of the opinion that the German proposal and Ribbentrop’s visitare evidence of the desperate situation in which the Reich presently findsitself.” 100)

For the 29 August, there is another occurrence, slightly more removed, to bementioned: While already previously the president of the World Jewish Congress,Goldmann, had told the League of Nations High Commissioner, Carl J. Buckhardt:

“Your appeasement-manoeuvres in Danzig are damaging. Public demon-strations against conditions in Danzig are necessary for the good of the whole,because of the general situation of the Jewish people,” 101)

so the Zionist leader and later president of Israel, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, wroteto the British Prime Minister, Chamberlain, on the 29 August:

“I wish to confirm, in the most explicit manner, the declarations which Iand my colleagues have made, that the Jews stand by Great Britain and willfight on the side of the democracies.

We therefore would place ourselves, in matters big and small, under thecoordinating direction of His Majesty’s Government. The Jewish Agency isready to enter into immediate arrangements for utilizing Jewish manpower,technical ability, resources, etc.” 102)

Hereby did a force, whose immense power certainly cannot be measured in

98) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 497; C.J. Burckhardt, MeineDanziger Mission 1937-1939, pp. 293, 317-318, 322, 347.

99) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 252.100) G. Bonnet, Fin d’une Europe. De Munich à la Guerre, p. 288 (German ed., p. 257).101) C.J. Burckhardt, op. cit., p. 104.102) H. Sündermann, Das Dritte Reich – eine Richtigstellung in Umrissen, pp. 198-200.


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divisions, announce their readiness to fight before the outbreak of war and, infact, did so likewise without any reservations, that is, ignoring “the question ofthe aggressor” (This note from Weizmann was not made public until the 5September 1939).

In awareness of the new and, at the moment, still secret Polish measures, andin complete agreement of the Polish general mobilization, the British ForeignSecretary did not – and this was bound to have a fateful effect! – inform thePolish government on the 29 August about Germany’s willingness for negotiations,but had this notification only passed on very late in the evening of the 30 August.While Halifax was transmitting information to Warsaw about a German plan foradvance, even as late as the evening of the 29 August, so for the 30 August, too,the motto remained the same: not to advise Poland “against any action whichthey consider necessary for their security”.103) Having already delayed theforwarding of the German proposal for negotiation until 7.00 p.m. of the 30 August,Halifax then ordered Kennard to place this information into Beck’s hands onlyaround midnight, i.e. to delay it again.104) In the course of this, he was to indicatethat Great Britain considered the German presentation [of the case] as “indefensibleand misleading”, and “have made an express reservation in regard to statement ofthe particular demands put forward in the German note”104) (telegram from Halifaxof 30 August, 7.00 p.m.; implemented around midnight).

The British government never did press for the Polish government to negotiate,not until the evening of the 30 August, after the Polish general mobilization hadalready been announced since 2.30 p.m. Thus Poland could not send aplenipotentiary to Berlin on the 30 August, at any rate not as a result of a Britishmediation effort. However, it has to be said in this connection, that the BritishAmbassador, Henderson, even as late as the night from the 29 August to the 30August (shortly before midnight on the 29 August), after the discussion withRibbentrop, had called on the Polish Ambassador, Lipski, and had told him thatPoland should send a plenipotentiary for the 30 August. In this way the Polishgovernment, therefore, had already been informed of Hitler’s reply to Britain bymidday on the 30 August. But here, too, the British Ambassador was to encounterthe increased hardening in Lipski’s attitude:

“The French, Americans and Italians have been on my doorstep since I gotback, but not a sign from the Polish Ambassador, in spite of the fact that I amon quite good terms with him! Poland also has got to make her contribution toworld peace and it is in her interests more than anyone else’s to remove as

103) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 491, 495, 505.104) ibid., vol. VII, doc. 539, 552, 566.


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thoroughly as she can any possible causes for friction in the future betweenherself and her powerful neighbour.” 105)

The British government has suppressed in the “British Blue Book” thissupplementary communication of the 29 August from Henderson; not withoutreason! Likewise, in the “British Blue Book”, they have deleted points 5, 6 and 7from Henderson’s report of the 29 August to London :

“5) I have communicated substance of German reply to French Ambassadorand urged him strongly to recommend to French Government that they advisePolish Government to propose immediate visit of Mr Beck as constituting inmy opinion sole chance now of preventing war. Herr Hitler is not bluffing andat any moment clash may occur. I expressed opinion that Polish Governmentby so doing would not only convince the world that they had done their utmostbut that, since others would suffer hardly less than themselves, it was theirduty as well as in their interests to make this last attempt.

6) Italian Ambassador who saw Hitler immediately after me also came tosee me. Herr Hitler was, he said, quite calm and gave him substance of Germanreply to His Majesty’s Government. Italian Ambassador also undertook tosuggest to Italian Government that they should make representations to PolishGovernment in similar sense.

7) I trust that His Majesty’s Government will see their way to do likewise.Repeated to Paris, Rome and Warsaw.” 106) (cf “British Blue Book” No. 80)

These suggestions, apparently, did not fulfil the British purpose, since Londontook no such step and even tried to hide the fact that her Ambassador wasrecommending taking just such a step. This should be proof, too, that the Britishgovernment had neither done “the utmost” nor had they been guiding their partnertowards doing “the utmost”, in order for the world to be convinced of their desirefor peace.

Likewise did the British government suppress the fact that Hitler had answeredin the affirmative Henderson’s question of whether he was ready to discuss withPoland “an exchange of populations”, which was to have been exclusively toGermany’s disadvantage.107)

This dishonest game was continued with regard to the British people and, yesindeed, the entire world:

105) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 318; Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII,doc. 501.

106) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 493; M. Freund, op. cit., vol.III, p. 336.

107) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 455.


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In the early hours of the 30 August, at 2.00 a.m., Henderson received theinstruction from Halifax to notify the Reich government that it was unreasonableto expect Great Britain to

“produce a Polish representative in Berlin today and the German Govern-ment must not expect this.” l07a)

Initiatives of the German Government

A few hours later, Henderson sent a telegram to London, announcing thatBirger Dahlerus – a Swedish industrialist, who, on German initiative, had beenactive as a German-British mediator already since July 1939 – was ready to fly toLondon, bypassing Ribbentrop, to discuss further possibilities for negotiation.Dahlerus, who had still been conferring with Göring during the night, was receivedby Chamberlain and Lord Halifax on the 30 August in the morning. Dahlerusexpounded, leaving aside the renewed frontier incidents and other Polishprovocations, already the essence of the German proposals.108) A telephoneconversation with Göring during this talk confirmed the accuracy of the statementsmade by Dahlerus.

“He [Göring] affirmed at once that the note was ready and that it offeredPoland conditions still more favourable than those of which he had told meduring the night.” 109)

Hitler’s proposal was to be “in the form of a ‘Diskussionsgrundlage’ (basisfor discussion)”, but it was an absolute condition that a Polish negotiator vestedwith plenary powers was to receive them.110) The German documents confirmthat Hitler did not wish to present Poland with an ultimatum but rather that hewas considering for the negotiations to take place over a more extended period,since their most urgent point is named as being the cessation of the persecution ofthe Germans in Poland.111)

107a) ibid., doc. 504.108) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 514.109) B. Dahlerus, op. cit., p. 103.110) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 519.111) ADAP, vol. VII, doc. 422.


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At 3.15 a.m. on the 30 August, thus even before Dahlerus had arrived inLondon, Lord Halifax already knew that “the 30 August is not an absolutelyunconditional date”.112)

As a result of the discussion with Dahlerus, Lord Halifax advised the Polishgovernment in the evening of the 30 August (5.30 p.m.):

“a) not to fire on fugitives or members of the German minority who causetrouble, but to arrest them;

b) to abstain themselves from personal violence to members of Germanminority;

c) to allow members of the German minority wishing to leave Poland topass freely;

d) to stop inflammatory radio propaganda.”

The reason given for this advice was the intention to deprive Hitler of the“pretext... to justify immoderate action”.113)

Since Britain’s written guarantee covered without reservation any Polish actionof whatever nature, and since Halifax had stated on the previous day his essentialapproval of the Polish general mobilization, one could hardly expect a change forthe better to come from such a lukewarm recommendation as given on the eveningof the 30 August. The reaction from Beck was to be expected (30 August, 7.15p.m.):

“The Polish Foreign Minister… enjoins the British government to refrainfrom pronouncing its views and positions on purely Polish matters unlessexpressly empowered to do so by the Polish government. It is the most rudesovereign-great power standpoint. The evaluation of Polish questions is thesole and exclusive decision of the Polish government.” 114)

Poland’s position now was much more rigid than in March 1939, before theBritish guarantee. If, over the five months from October 1938 to March 1939, shehad shown readiness to negotiate, now she no longer need “fear negotiations”,115)

even less so, since the Polish military leadership was convinced of their forces’superiority over the Wehrmacht. Even with his allies, Beck kept his cards close tohis chest.115)

“The Polish government…, cold, haughty, rigid and fatalistic…, had been…tight-lipped for four months, only answering all urging from the Western Allies

112) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 509.113) ibid., doc. 532.114) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 348.115) ibid., pp. 366, 387.


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with empty promises. To them – fools of mad-cap heroism – the others arefools of faint-heartedness. Even on the eve of war, the British government isstill not clear, whether the Polish government’s support for their negotiationeffort is only somewhat feigned.” 116)

On 30 August the British government had further aggravated the situation bynot informing the Polish government of the German readiness for negotiationsuntil the late hour of around 12 o’clock midnight. Poland, for her part, used the30 August for worsening the situation by announcing in the afternoon generalmobilization, which had been decreed the day before, and by stopping rail servicesto East Prussia at first in parts, then on the 31 August stopping it completely byblowing up the bridge at Dirschau.117)

On the 30 August at approximately 12 o’clock midnight – 10 hours after thepublic announcement and 34 hours after the secretly decreed general mobilizationby Poland – Henderson presented to the Reich Foreign Minister a memorandumfrom the British government, which stated that while the German government“must obviously…with all urgency” endeavour direct talks with Warsaw “it wouldbe impracticable to establish contact so early as today”.118) By this move it wasindicated to Hitler that the British government, contrary to their assurance, wasnot at all making any attempt at mediation, had not even impelled Poland to thenegotiation table and was not able to suggest avenues of how the Germangovernment might move Poland to initiate a discussion, for their part, havingsince March 1939 concluded negotiations with a threat of war. Lord Halifax evenrejected the German suggestion that he might advise Poland to send arepresentative for immediate German-Polish negotiations.118) With emphasis, butwithout an explanation, Halifax had instructed Henderson to schedule the meetingonly for this late hour, although the details of the intended move had already beenwith the embassy in Berlin since 7.40 p.m.118)

In his reply, Ribbentrop read aloud to the British Ambassador the Germannegotiation proposals intended for Poland. He was later criticized for not havinghanded over the proposals in written form, having only conveyed them “at topspeed” and unintelligibly. One cannot fabricate a case of wrongdoing from thisoral presentation. The Minister Plenipotentiary and chief interpreter, Dr. PaulSchmidt, disputed the claim that Ribbentrop had been reading too fast andindistinctly.119) For the rest, there is the memorandum of Minister Plenipotentiary

116) ibid., p. 398.117) A. Buckreis, Politik des 20. Jahrhunderts, p. 226.118) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 538, 543,534.119) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 354.


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Schmidt in the German documents; 120) it is stated therein that Ribbentrop “hadread... slowly and clearly, and had even given explanations on the main points”.

The proposals were ready. Their content matter had been known to the Britishgovernment since the morning of the 30 August (cf. Dahlerus’s talks in London).Hitler, though, had declined handing over these proposals in writing, since hewished to present them first to the Polish government as the actual negotiationspartner; as Great Britain had up to now not been making any attempts at mediation,she could hardly expect to be given them beforehand. For the rest, had not GreatBritain just this moment given to understand, London is not prepared to mediate,even at this stage? The Foreign Office was displaying no sign of urgency duringthese last days. Just then, Henderson had conveyed during the same discussionhis government’s view as set down in a memorandum that “it would beimpracticable to establish contact as early as today” between Germany and Poland.

It was known everywhere, just how sensitive was Poland’s reaction, particu-larly in regards to the question of her sovereignty. For this reason alone, Hitlercould hardly have passed over the German proposals to British hands. ReichForeign Minister von Ribbentrop later wrote about this:

“The British government, it is true, had undertaken to use its good officesto effect such negotiations, not, however, to take the place of a Polish plenipo-tentiary…

…that an official handing over of a document that was meant for a Polishnegotiator – yet before having been received by the government addressedherewith – could have provided the pretext for not sending a Polish emissaryand to cover the sequence of events for the Polish general mobilization, withregard to time, ‘in the undergrowth of delaying tactics’.” 121)

The proposal for negotiations to be discussed, as drafted on the 30 August bythe Reich government, contained the following points:

a) the return of Danzig to the Reich (“Nobody in Poland denies that Danzig isa German city from a national standpoint”).122)

b) a plebiscite on the affiliation of the Corridor territory (West Prussia), underinternational control, not before a period of twelve months. If, as a result of thisvote, the Corridor were to return to the Reich, then Poland would receive theharbour of Gdingen and an extra-territorial road through West Prussia. If, on theother hand, the population of the Corridor voted in favour of Poland, then theReich would claim the right to an extra-territorial road to East Prussia.

120) ADAP, vol. VII, doc. 513.121) A. von Ribbentrop, Verschwörung gegen den Frieden, p. 493; J. von Ribbentrop, Zwischen

London und Moskau, p. 193.122) J. Szembek, Journal 1933-1939, p. 452.


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c) a guarantee of non-aggression extended to a period of 25 years, indeed, aguarantee of the Polish state and thus of Poland’s frontiers in general.

The proposal, or rather claim, thus put by Hitler did neither contain the re-integration of the province of Posen nor the valuable industrial areas of EasternUpper Silesia, arbitrarily and unlawfully detached from the Reich in 1921, norany other rectification.

Furthermore, such rectification demands have never been brought into anytalks held by the German leadership, but this did not stop French or Britishdiplomats or other forces, remaining anonymous, from including such false reportsas “authentic documents” in the “French Yellow Book”, or to spread the rumoursfrom London.123) The German proposal, a “veritable League of Nationsproposal”,124) was based on the people’s right of self-determination and, in respectto these two areas, it even relinquished the application of this principle. The extentof the area involved in Hitler’s proposal amounted to only one-tenth of the regionthat was appropriated unlawfully by Poland in 1919. That this eleventh-hourproposal had been an extremely generous one was realized by each and everyexpert, in 1939, too. It did not really require historians first to discover this and tomake a comparison with the claims advanced by the Weimar democrats. In noway could this proposal be regarded, from a Polish point of view, as inferior tothe plan which initially had even been discussed by Colonel Beck for five months,since Poland was expecting a plebiscite victory in the disputed territory, or rather,was propagating this belief in victory.

Shortly before his conversation with Ribbentrop, Henderson wrote to hisForeign Secretary, warning him:

“If there is to be any genuine peace in future between Poland and herpowerful neighbour grievances of latter which are not of Herr Hitler’s makingbut national must be eliminated. In my opinion in order to achieve this endCity of Danzig as distinct from port must revert to Germany; there must bedirect and extra-territorial communication between Reich and East Prussia;and German minority in Poland must be got rid of by means of some exchangeof population. On no other basis can there ever be genuine and lasting peacebetween the two countries. No diplomatic compromise has a hope of survivingindefinitely.

If we are ever to get German army and nation to revolt against the intoler-able government of Herr Hitler it can only be so far as Poland is concerned onsome such basis, since whole of nation itself and even most of moderatesections of it would not regard any other basis as fair to Germany…

123) “French Yellow Book”, doc. 285, 287, 291, 293; Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 450.

124) P. Schmidt, Statist auf diplomatischer Bühne, p. 456.


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In the meantime I can only urge once more importance of Poland acceptingat once proposal for direct negotiations and thereby putting herself right inthe eyes of the world.” 125)

Having only just written that Hitler “would refuse such a basis”, so Hendersonmust have been rather surprised in his talk with Ribbentrop that the Germanproposal contained precisely that which he himself had outlined as being theGerman minimum demands. Hitler, after all, did accept this “basis”, and Hendersoneven described, straight after the meeting with the Reich Foreign Minister, theGerman offer as “not unreasonable”.

The Lethargic Polish Ambassador

That Henderson had understood and had also retained the gist of the contentsfollows from the fact that in the early hours of the 31 August, at 2.00 a.m., heinformed his Polish counterpart, Lipski, of the basic outlines of the Germanproposal and recommended, “in the very strongest terms”, a discussion betweenSmigly-Rydz and Göring, but also direct contact with Ribbentrop: Lipski, for hispart, should at least make an attempt for the preservation of peace and to soundout the Reich Foreign Minister on the possibilities for negotiations. But in vain!In a note to London he gave vent to his exasperation:

“The German proposals certainly do not endanger the independence ofPoland...The German acceptance of a plebiscite in the Corridor is curious...

The Poles must put themselves in the right by making a gesture of somekind, or else we must all fight.” 126)

Henderson reported on the talk with Lipski:

“I then gave him following advice in very strongest terms. He should atonce ring up Minister for Foreign Affairs and say he had heard from me thatdetailed proposals had been individually elaborated and that he would like tocall on Herr von Ribbentrop with a view to learning and communicating themimmediately to Polish Government. I suggested he should do this tonight onhis own responsibility.” 127)

125) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 537.126) ibid., doc. 628, 629.127) ibid., doc. 575, 574.


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Lipski, however, did nothing at all, as Henderson reports:

“Polish Ambassador promised to telephone at once to his Government buthe is so inert or so handicapped by instructions of his Government that I cannotrely on his action being an effective palliative.” 127)

At 5.15 a.m. on 31 August, Henderson sent a telegram with the main points ofthe German proposal to London (received at 9.30 a.m.).127) In the meantime theSwedish intermediary, Dahlerus had, in the early hours of the 31 August, at between1.00-2.00 a.m., passed on by telephone the contents of the German proposal tothe Counsellor of the British embassy, Ogilvie-Forbes. At 8.00 a.m. Hendersongave Polish Legation Secretary Malhomme the complete text of the Germanproposal. Warsaw received it at 10.55 a.m. on 31 August.

By 9.05 a.m. Henderson knew with certainty that the time period had beenextended from the 30 August to the 31 August, as he was now informing hisFrench colleague Coulondre of this news. But in the meantime he had learnedfrom Göring via an intermediary that it would even be enough if Lipski coulddeclare, within this extension, “that a negotiator will be sent shortly”.128)

At 11.00 a.m. in the morning of 31 August, Birger Dahlerus, accompanied bythe Counsellor of the British embassy, Ogilvie-Forbes, went to see the PolishAmbassador, Lipski. Dahlerus wrote of this meeting:

“Upon arrival one already sensed very strongly the gravity of the situation.Boxes were lined up in the hall and everywhere the personnel was busypreparing for departure. Lipski received us in his office, from which part ofthe furnishings had already been removed…

Forbes… asked me to read the German note addressed to Poland, and I didso. But Lipski soon said that he was unable to understand the contents. Forbesthen put down the main points himself and handed the note to Lipski, whotook the paper, hands shaking, and looked at it for a moment – but then statedthat he could not understand what was written, whereupon I offered to dictatethe note immediately to his secretary…

While I was dictating to the secretary, Lipski had told Forbes that he hadno reason to interest himself in any notes or offers from the Germans. He hadhad many years experience of Germany… he stated his conviction that unrestwould break out in this country in the event of war and that the Polish armywould march triumphantly on Berlin.” 129)

Lipski described the German proposals offhandedly as “a sign of weak-

128) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 371.129) B. Dahlerus, op. cit., p. 110.


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ness”.130) Polish leading circles were ridiculing the German readiness fornegotiations, and it was not only Warsaw radio that expressed such an attitude.131)

Lukasiewicz in Paris:

“They [the German proposals] are so immoderate that the German govern-ment must have gone mad, or else is now pursuing an out-and-out provocationto goad the Polish government.” 132)

Such a misinterpretation of Germany’s willingness to negotiate embodied thevery opposite of a peaceable attitude. Even Lord Halifax voiced his irritation –albeit too late – on 1 September:

“On the other hand, I do not see why the Polish Government should feeldifficulty about authorizing Polish Ambassador to accept a document fromthe German Government, and I earnestly hope that they may be able to modifytheir instructions to him in this respect. There was no mention of any ultimatumin the report on the German proposals which has been furnished to us, and thesuggestion that the demand for the presence of a Polish plenipotentiary atBerlin on August 30 amounted to an ultimatum was vigorously repudiated byHerr von Ribbentrop in conversation with His Majesty’s Ambassador. If thedocument did contain an ultimatum, the Polish Government would naturallyrefuse to discuss it until the ultimatum was withdrawn. On the other hand, arefusal by them to receive proposals would be gravely misunderstood byoutside opinion.

I should have thought that the Polish Ambassador could surely be instructedto receive and transmit a document and to say

(a) if it contained anything like an ultimatum, that he anticipated that thePolish Government would certainly be unable to discuss on such a basis and

(b) that, in any case, in the view of the Polish Government, questions as tothe venue of the negotiations, the basis on which they should be held, and thepersons to take part in them, must be discussed and decided between the twoGovernments.” 133)

The “Line” of Lord Halifax

Of course, it seems reasonable to suspect that Halifax did not mean what hehad said there, because 24 hours earlier he had passed on to the Polish government

130) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 373.131) “Polish White Book”, doc. 136.132) G. Bonnet, op. cit., p. 342 (German ed. p. 288).133) “British Blue Book”, doc. 100: Halifax to Kennard on 31 August to 1 September 1939, midnight;

Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 632.


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Hitler’s basis for negotiations from the 29 August in the evening only in the earlyhours of the 31 August, subject to numerous provisos,134) by which he practicallyinvited Poland’s refusal. In this telegram to his Ambassador in Warsaw (30 August– 7.00 p.m., implemented in the early hours of the 31 August) Halifax admitted“the line we have taken”, regarding it as important that Minister for Foreign Affairs,Beck, “will see the line”.135) This is to be understood in the light of the delay in thepassing on of the German proposal and London’s provisos regarding the contents,but no less in the deceitful conduct of the British Foreign Secretary since the 25or rather the 28 August, with the unreserved approval of the Polish generalmobilization included. To make his purpose still clearer for the Polish ForeignMinister, he added that he recommended discussions in view of “the internalsituation in Germany and of world opinion”.

“So long as the German Government profess themselves ready to negotiate,no opportunity should be given them for placing the blame for a conflict onPoland.” 135)

After the delay mentioned, i.e. from the evening of the 29 August to the earlyhours on 31 August, Halifax told the Poles that the German proposals did notconstitute “an ultimatum”, although having just previously for precisely thosereasons refused to advise the Polish government in good time (24 hours after thePolish general mobilization!) that she should send an emissary with full powersto Berlin.

Colonel Beck confirmed right away, early in the morning of the 31 August,that he had taken cognizance of “the line” taken by London. He seemed “greatlyrelieved”, as Ambassador Kennard reported:

“…and he [Beck] fully realized the main importance which His Majesty’sGovernment attaches to the necessity of not giving the German Governmentany opportunity for placing the blame on Poland in any refusal to enter intodirect negotiations.” 136)

At 11.00 a.m. on the 31 August, the Italian Ambassador in Berlin, Attolico,and the head of the Italian government, Mussolini, were taking action indepen-dently of one another. Both of them advised London

a) that Lord Halifax must press the Polish government, for war to be avoided,

134) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 539, 566.135) ibid., doc. 539.136) ibid., doc. 576.


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to authorize Ambassador Lipski to hold negotiations with the German government;b) that an international conference should be convened for the 5 September

“with the object of examining the clauses of the Treaty of Versailles whichare the cause of present disturbance in the life of Europe.” 137)

Mussolini decided to put this suggestion to Hitler only after obtaining theBritish and French assent to this.

No light has been shed upon the reason why State Secretary von Weizsäcker,who was informed of it by Attolico, did not pass on this proposal. In this way, aswell as for the reason that the French Prime Minister Daladier called for

“convening the conference only after direct talks between Germany andPoland had failed”,138)

neither Hitler nor Ribbentrop heard about these suggestions on the 31 August,but only on the 2 September in the morning.139) On the 2 September, in theafternoon, Hitler accepted the plan of a general conference and the suspension ofGerman military operations in Poland and agreed to have proposals for it completedwithin 24 hours.140) Hitler’s willingness to use the mediator Dahlerus to the lastand to send even on the 3 September, i.e. within the running-time of the Britishultimatum to Germany, Göring with full powers to London, is proof that he musthave accepted Mussolini’s suggestion for a ceasefire-conference for the 5September.

At 12.50 p.m. on the 31 August, Chamberlain’s first reaction was already(hardly two hours after Mussolini’s suggestion) to refuse, “under the threat ofmobilized armies”,141) to agree to such a conference. In the afternoon of the 31

137) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, doc. 142; W. Jedrzejewicz, Poland in the British Parliament 1939-1945, vol. I, No. 46.

138) G. Bonnet, op. cit., p. 340 (German ed. p. 287).139) ADAP, vol. VII, doc. 535.140) Documenti Italiani , series VIII, vol. 13, doc. 572, 574, 581, 584. – It emerges from volume VII

of the ADAP, published in 1950 by the French, British and American authorities, that Hitler onlyon 3 September, after Britain’s declaration of war – thus too late – had been considering areasonably positive reply to Mussolini, subject to certain preconditions. This version must berejected as a falsification, even if it were only in that crucial documents of this period wereexcluded from publication.

For an historical-factual evaluation of these ADAP volumes, compare Nation Europa 5/1963Glatte Fälschungen.

141) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 380.


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August, Chamberlain “now was much less in a hurry.” 142) He was not to changehis mind again. Britain, while not accepting Mussolini’s proposal, stipulated,after the outbreak of war, the unrealistic precondition of immediately withdrawingthe German forces from Poland, before a conference could be contemplated. Thiswas tantamount to a refusal, particularly, since even in the event of this happening,no improved likelihood for negotiations, compared to the conditions on 31 August,was proffered. The Polish Minister for Foreign Affairs has, on the 2 September at2.47 a.m., likewise rejected the plan for a conference.143)

When passing judgment on these series of events it should be rememberedthat British politics in the year 1939 had been focussed on actually creating, inthe first place, a “threat of mobilized armies” – courtesy of President Roosevelt’s“methods short of war,” 144) having been advocated and adopted by him sinceJanuary 1939. A conference, even with these preconditions not evoked by Hitler– since spring 1939 Poland had begun this unfounded mobilization! – wouldhave been a far greater act of peace than to refuse all negotiations and consequentlyaccept a military conflict. Hitler, for his part, had not refused to negotiate, evenwith the already months-long “threat of mobilized armies”, namely of the Polishas well as the French!

But back to the events in Berlin, London and Warsaw on 31 August.Both the British and Polish government were, in the morning of the 31 August,

in possession of the German proposals (London had received them 24 hours earlierthan Warsaw), and had knowledge, or rather, should have had knowledge, of theextension for the negotiations. The two governments, however, did nothing toease the tension, making no effort for talks or a further extension of the deadline.The British government neither reproached Warsaw for provocations against theMinority Germans, nor for actions against Danzig, nor for the demands made forEast Prussia and the Oder regions as voiced by Polish public opinion, nor forrejecting all negotiations, nor for the general mobilization, and, therefore, didindeed “ignore the question of the aggressor”. In addition, British governmentmembers were, in their policy regarding the press, adopting a deliberately war-promoting stance, particularly on this 31 August, spreading news they knew to belies. Thus, The Daily Telegraph of the 31 August carried – how else but on officialinstruction? – the false report that

a) Poland’s general mobilization was only a consequence of “demands fromHitler for territorial claims” or rather “of the newly put forward demands fromHitler”;

142) G. Bonnet, op. cit., pp. 340-341 (German ed. p. 287).143) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 693.144) K. Feiling, op. cit., p. 392.


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b) the British government had immediately passed on to Warsaw Hitler’s replyof the 29 August;

c) Great Britain had sent to Hitler, with all possible speed on the 30 August, anote by “a special courier by plane”;

d) the German Army commanders in the border regions had been given specialpowers.

Not one of these accounts was true, but they were all calculated so as to provokeagitation and to demonstrate anew, especially to the Poles, the position of theBritish leadership.

“When the British government realized the inherent dangers of thispublication, they arranged for this issue to be withdrawn. In the revised edition,the statements on German military measures take up three quarters of thearticle, the reports on how Henderson had been received and the Cabinetdebates are missing, and the following untrue news item is repeated:

‘After receiving a communication from London that indicated the kind ofnewly put forward demands from Hitler, the Polish government announcedextraordinary defence measures.’” 145)

At the same time (31 August, midday), Sir Horace Wilson at the Foreign Officewas refusing to give Dahlerus the opportunity – as had been approved byHenderson – to get in touch with London on the embassy line of the Britishembassy in Berlin. When Dahlerus was relating Lipski’s refusal to take cognizanceof the German willingness for negotiations or the German proposals, and he wasstressing the direct consequences this mulish stubbornness would have on thepeace in Europe and suggesting that London influence Poland, Wilson put downthe receiver with the words “shut up!”.146) The pretext that German intelligencemight be listening in was without any foundation, given the topic of theconversation and the neutral position of Dahlerus as mediator. For Lipski’s stancewas bound to become known to the Reich government via a different route anyway.On the other hand, to break off a conversation so abruptly – especially in the caseof German security services listening in – was apt to confirm the leadership ofthe Reich in the conviction that in reality London does not want talks. But evengiven the case of no Germans listening in, the putting down of the receiver on thisneutral mediator while talking was bound to give the clear signal that Britain didnot want mediation.

The mediator Dahlerus had not been impeded by Hitler or Göring or doomedto failure in his mission, but rather by the British government that – reiterating

145) F. Lenz, op. cit., p. 443.146) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 589.


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the words of Halifax – “since the conclusion of the German-Soviet agreement” of23 August was no longer willing “to patch matters up”.147)

August the 31 was the day when Lord Halifax sanctioned Beck’s “standingfirm” and his decision, not to expose Lipski to “extreme pressure and blackmail”in Berlin, but, at the same time, was reprimanding Henderson for having takenmatters into his own hands, when he, once again, had been putting Lipski underpressure through Dahlerus.148)

August the 31 was the day when the Polish government, as Beck told FrenchAmbassador Noël, arrived at the decision that as

“we are in the thick of war, it was time not to talk of conferences but ofmutual aid in resistance to aggression.” 149)

This was the basic position in Warsaw, to label Germany that had not actedaggressively towards Poland as the “aggressor”, so as to use this pretext to becomemilitarily active while banking on foreign support. Göring’s Research Departmentpicked up at 12.40 p.m. an enciphered telegram from Warsaw to Lipski in Berlin,the gist of which was that the Ambassador was to seek an interview withRibbentrop, but under no circumstances was to get involved in pertinent talks.That this telegraphic directive, which is withheld from the “Polish White Book”,is authentic, should be shown by the following:

1. Lipski’s subsequent talk with Ribbentrop at 6.30 p.m.,150) when Lipski’sattitude was in conformity with the telegram, and he had not been provided withplenary powers;

2. Beck told Kennard in Warsaw on the 31 August that Lipski would not beauthorized to negotiate in Berlin151);

3. Poland has never rejected this account in the “German White Book” andneither has Lipski himself.

4. In direct correlation with this note stood the arrival in Warsaw of PrinceLubomirski, sent by Lipski as a kind of special courier. This Counsellor of embassyarrived in Warsaw before noon on the 31 August.152) Apparently, basing it on thisinitiative, Lipski was still too active for the liking of his Minister for ForeignAffairs.

147) E. Raczynski, op. cit., p. 24.148) H. Holldack, Was wirklich geschah, p. 160, footnote.149) ibid., p. 163; Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 693.150) “German White Book” No. 2, p. CLII; ADAP, vol. VII, doc. 476.151) L.B. Namier, Diplomatic Prelude 1938-1939, p. 374 and Documents on British Foreign Policy

1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 600 and 608.152) “Polish White Book”, doc. 147, p. 149.


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5. For a man such as Beck, for whom already “we are in the thick of war”,149)

was this telegram, which practically revoked the ambassadorial powers of hisrepresentative in Berlin, merely logically consistent.

Field Marshal Göring showed the text of the Polish telegram to Dahlerus andasked him to convey the information immediately to the British Ambassador,Henderson, which meant that he was voluntarily divulging that the Polish secretcode was known to Germany.

“Göring wanted to avoid war if this were at all possible… He liked to actas the mouthpiece of the German generals, themselves fearful of war; andmaybe, as the supposed director of German economics, he grasped thatGermany was not prepared to face a general war. The German approaches toboth Soviet Russia and Great Britain came from economic experts – strikingproof that the second World war did not have economic causes.” 153)

While London let also pass by the afternoon of the 31 August unexploited, thePolish Ambassador, Lipski, in accordance with the instruction sent from Warsawat 12.40 p.m., asked to be received for talks with Ribbentrop. The Reich ForeignMinister did check back, first of all, whether Lipski wanted to see him “as aspecial plenipotentiary or in some other capacity”.154)

“This was a clear sign and offered a new chance to the Polish government:now they did not have to send a negotiator but merely give ‘special authority’to Lipski so as to yet bring about direct talks at the eleventh hour.

Lipski understood the significance of this query, because at 3.15 p.m. hehad the Polish Minister for Foreign Affairs informed by telegram andcommunicated to him that he personally had replied ‘that he was asking foran interview in his capacity of Ambassador to remit a communication fromhis government’. So now it was up to Beck to extend this ‘communication’ inthe sense that Lipski could act as special plenipotentiary!

Ribbentrop took advantage of this opportunity also. So as to allow timefor the Polish government to make suchlike arrangements, he set theappointment for the Polish Ambassador to come to the Foreign Ministry notbefore 6.30 p.m.” 155)

Beck, however, did not respond. Thus, the Polish Ambassador presentedhimself at 6.30 p.m. – as mentioned before – without plenary powers. He alsorefused, in accordance with his instructions from Warsaw, to engage in pertinenttalks, stating that he “had no direct information on the subject”, and that he could

153) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 243.154) ADAP, vol. VII, doc. 475.155) A. von Ribbentrop, op. cit., p. 500.


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not accept any proposals. Beck considered himself, even yet on the evening ofthe 31 August, “apparently neither asked nor requested”.156) Even for the Britishgovernment the Poles were going too far this time; they regarded the position ofthe Reich government – at least to a certain degree – as justified, as is clearlyshown in the already mentioned telegram sent during the night by Halifax toKennard.157)

At 6.40 p.m., after the talks between Ribbentrop and Lipski had come tonothing158) – not, as in many cases historians have been copying from one anotherwithout giving any references, at 12.40 p.m. or 4.20 p.m.159) – Hitler issued theattack order to begin operations on 1 September 1939 at 4.45 a.m. For him it wasa question of making use of the few hours that were possibly still left him – aftermore than 48 hours since the Polish general mobilization! – to forestall an evidentlyimpending Polish attack that – as must be suspected in Berlin – could well bealigned with a French advance, and to guard against the military disadvantagesarising from this.

At 9.15 p.m. of the 31 August, the German radio broadcast to the world Hitler’soffer. Hereby was the Polish government given once more the opportunity byBerlin to reconsider.

But at 11.00 p.m., the Polish Broadcasting Service at Warsaw called it insteadan “impudent proposal”, rejected each and every negotiation, found words of derisionto describe the waiting in vain of the “new Huns” and declared that Poland’s replycould only be in military terms and, anyway, Poland’s answer upon the Germanwillingness to negotiate from the days before had already been “given” with “themilitary orders”.160) This broadcast was done at a time, when the Polish governmentdid not yet know of Hitler’s attack order, but did have information, however, alreadyfor days as admitted, about the German willingness to negotiate and about theextremely tense situation. The Polish decision for war is, therefore, proven alsowith this declaration of war via the radio. Poland decided on war at a time, whenHitler was attempting to resolve the biggest territorial violation of the law of theVersailles diktat without bloodshed, with a fair compromise and, in fact, with

156) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, p. 387.157) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 632.158) The time of day, i.e. 6.40 p.m., was personally confirmed to the author by Lieutenant-General

Gerhard Engel, who had been in attendance, and thus a witness, when this order was issued.159) ADAP, vol.VII, p. 479 – English ed.: appendix I, p. 569: The details given in this piece of data

(it is not a genuine document with certified source-proof) require an in-depth examination withregard to its authenticity and cannot be accepted at face value; likewise, the same applies to thecomment made by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein in his book Verlorene Siege, p. 23 (Englished., Lost Victories, p. 32) according to which the order reached him at 5 p.m.

160) M. Freund, op. cit., vol. III, doc. 158, p. 397.


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renunciation of a kind no government of the Weimar Republic had ever been willingto make. Hitler had not attached any deadline or any ultimatum to Poland to theclaim upheld for Danzig and an extra-territorial transit way into East Prussia. It istrue that the Reich Chancellor had, since April 1939, set the date of completion tobe the 1 September at the latest for “Operation White”, the military planningagainst Poland, but he did not link this plan to any definite offensive purpose orto an aggressive order against Poland. This plan had been worked out, inaccordance with orders, on the presupposition that Poland might “adopt athreatening attitude towards the Reich” and with the objective, “in case of need,to eliminate any threat from this direction.” 161) Whereas Hitler – as alreadydescribed – during the summer months in 1939 was making numerous minor“diplomatic retreats”161), the wave of oppression of the German Minority welledup to such a degree – as, in fact, the resistance adherent Weizsäcker stated – thatit submerged the original problem: Danzig and the passage through the Corridor.161)

The ever-worsening crisis leading up to this date –1 September 1939 – did notstem from Hitler’s initiative, as can be proved, but rather from the initiatives onthe part of Poland and Britain. It was these two countries that in August 1939 leftthe leadership of the Reich with the only alternative of either choosing betweenhumiliation beyond all reasonable demand – also in the form of relinquishmentof Danzig for all times and the expulsion of the rest of the Minority Germansfrom German territory in Poland – or the struggle for Germany’s rights to existence.

The Polish General Kazimierz Sosnkowski, Minister without portfolio in theCabinet in exile, revealed on 31 August 1943 to allied representatives of the press:

“Poland’s decision on 30 August 1939, which was based on the decree forgeneral mobilization, marks a turning point in the history of Europe. Hitlerwas now confronted with the inevitability to wage war at a time when he washoping to achieve further victories without bloodshed.” 162)

It is not a punishable crime attempting to win bloodless victories in the politicalsphere – to say nothing when it concerns the re-establishment of the law accordingto the principle of self-determination! – and neither can it be a question, in thisspecific case, of it being Hitler’s irrevocable determination to a bloodless “victory”in the height of summer in 1939; after all, the Polish question has not beenintensified by him: “Hitler contributed little to the course of diplomacy between

161) ibid., vol. II, pp. 130–131; D.J. Dallin, Soviet Russia’s Foreign Policy, p. 36; E. von Weizsäcker,Erinnerungen, p. 242.

162) H. Sündermann, Alter Feind was nun? p. 85.


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April and August 1939.” 163) General Sosnkowski, as well as the Polish government,were fully aware that Hitler did not wish to go to war over the Polish question.Therefore, the creation of “necessities” was undertaken, which would force himinto war. That it was not the “fear of a strongly armed Germany”, but, on thecontrary, rather a misplaced belief in a rapid internal collapse of Germany, whichwas the guiding notion – principally in Warsaw, London and Washington – requiresno detailed proof, since all documents testify to this. The British Ambassador inBerlin was also aware of these facts:

“It is a horrible thought to think that Polish readiness to negotiate maysave the [National Socialist] régime. If one considered only oneself, one wouldsay ‘Don’t lift a finger but just see the whole thing through’. But it is a terribleresponsibility.” 164)

When Hitler issued the attack order against Poland at 6.40 p.m. on 31 August,to be carried out 4.45 a.m. on the 1 September, he still wanted to keep open thechannel of a British mediation:

“In the statement about the 16-point proposal that was broadcast over the[German] radio, it did not say that the German proposals had lapsed owing tothe non-arrival of the Polish negotiator within the time-limit set for the daybefore, but it says that ‘under these circumstances’, meaning all those asdescribed in the statement, as well as the negating attitude of the PolishAmbassador in the afternoon, the German government cannot but regard theirproposals as having been virtually rejected, which was then, of course,confirmed by the Polish reply at 11.00 p.m.” 165)

The German press was instructed not to talk of “war”, but rather about“shooting back”. What is more, everything was being done to confine the conflict,once broken out, to Poland. On the 1 September at 9.50 a.m., or rather at 10.45a.m., the British government was again informed by the Swedish mediator,Dahlerus, that

a) Field Marshal Göring had received orders, in view of the Dirschau bridgehaving been blown up, resulting in an unavoidable suspension of the transit routethrough Poland into East Prussia, and in view of the fighting having taken placein the Danzig area the day before (31 August), to drive back the Polish army fromthe border region and to destroy the Polish Air Force along the frontier;

163) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 219.164) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 628: Henderson to Halifax,

31 August 1939.165) F. Lenz, op. cit., vol. I, p. 575.


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b) Poland’s refusal to negotiate with Germany was seen by the government ofthe Reich as proof that single-handedly nothing else could be done on their part;

c) he, Dahlerus, had

“arranged with permission of the Führer a very friendly discussion withthe British Ambassador and the Polish Ambassador.” 166)

These pieces of information were opening up once more possibilities tointervene.166) Notably absent here was any mentioning of the “destruction ofPoland”, but instead mention is made only of the border area, of the hopelesssituation, as it was regarded in Germany, and of the intention to bring aboutnegotiations. While, for this reason, no steps were taken on the German side thatwould cause the Polish Ambassador, Lipski, to leave Berlin, so that, indeed, heremained in the capital of the Reich for several more days after the 1 September167),Halifax replied to the mediation and discussion proposals, which had just beenput forward by Dahlerus, five hours later (1 September at 4.45 p.m.) with a“warning” to Hitler. The next stage would be, if the German reply wasunsatisfactory, and if the German troops were not promptly withdrawn from Polishterritory, an ultimatum with a time limit or an immediate declaration of war. Inthis communication the British government made no mention of openings fornegotiations in case of German compliance.

Hitler had never taken any action, during his entire period in office, that weredirected against British vital interests – unless, of course, the unification andstrengthening of Germany was interpreted in London as a “violation of Britishvital interests”. Great Britain, on the other hand, had done everything to meddlein affairs, which did not at all affect her interests. They went so far as to announceGermany’s annihilation, when Germany was no longer going to be humiliated byPoland, when Germany was no longer going to put up with Danzig being starvedout, and when the Reich government was not going to wait until the first Polishmilitary blow was struck, which was to be expected at any moment, with thesights on Berlin, Danzig and East Prussia, and one would have to presume that itwould be synchronized with the advance of the French army.

Neville Chamberlain did, once again, deliberately misinform the House ofCommons on the 1 September, when he stated:

“We never got a copy of those proposals [Hitler’s from the 30 August] and

166) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 639 and 644.167) A. von Ribbentrop, op. cit., p. 507.


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the first time we heard them – we heard them – was on the broadcast lastnight.” 168)

It was just as misleading, when he asserted that Ribbentrop had read theseproposals to the British Ambassador “at top speed” – meaning unintelligibly –and had “proved” with this that they were not at all meant to be taken seriously.This speech by Chamberlain, which once again contained thus (compare his speechof 25 August) deliberate distortions, did not only expose the power structureswithin British democracy, according to which the people were not consulted onmatters of vital importance to their existence, were not even given correctinformation, but it also exposed London’s anti-peace orientated policy. Because– as stated – honesty is a precondition for a policy of peace! But the Britishgovernment was not honest in the last days of peace:

1. They did, without having been unconditionally authorized by Poland, dupeHitler about Polish willingness to negotiate and the British desire to mediate,asking the Reich Chancellor to draw up his basis for discussions. But Halifax, infact, was not taking any action commensurate with an intermediary; indeed, hewas fully cognizant,

“...that Polish Government have not looked with favour on the possibilityof mediation” [this referred to the Roosevelt message of 25 August 1939] 169),

yet, nevertheless, he extended on this 25 August the unconditional guaranteeto this Poland in a war-mood, in accordance with his determination that

“any attempt to patch matters up had been out of the question since theconclusion of the German-Soviet agreement.” 170)

2. As can now be proved, Halifax fabricated on the 28 August a Polish assuranceof readiness to negotiate, he deceived his Ambassador, Henderson, and he addedto his subterfuge manoeuvre concerning the Note to Hitler of 28 August so muchexplosive matter by way of giving false news accounts to diplomats and the pressthat he had made it impossible thereby to reach a peaceable settlement.

3. At the same time, Halifax was sending alarming messages to the Polishgovernment, without, however, informing them in good time of the steps theyhad taken in Berlin and of Hitler’s reaction. He thought it important that theyshould perceive in Warsaw his guiding principle, i.e. his “line”.

168) “British Blue Book”, doc. 105.169) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 280.170) E. Raczynski, op. cit., p. 24.


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4. London did not protest about the Polish general mobilization, which had tobe attributed in part to the Halifaxian alarmist news from the day before.

5. Lord Halifax violated his own preconditions, which he had conveyed toHitler two days before (28 August), when he did not, for one single moment, takeany action whatsoever as intermediary, not even at this point or beyond.

6. The British government thwarted Hitler’s expectation of a Polishplenipotentiary by delaying, from the evening of the 29 August to the early hoursof the morning on the 31 August, and they made so many provisos in thecommunication that was eventually transmitted to Warsaw that they were therebyprovoking a rejection from Poland. They frustrated, thereby, a direct German-Polish contact that they themselves had recommended from becoming realized,and they made the – blown out of all proportions – “question of procedure”, i.e.how should the German proposals be imparted to the Polish government, insoluble.The British government, therefore, was using these three days from 28-31 Augustfor advancing the war, while simultaneously keeping Hitler in the belief that theywere continuing with intensive mediation efforts.

7. Lord Halifax also made use, during the last discussions between Hitler andHenderson, of unproved rumours according to which Germans in Poland werecommitting acts of sabotage. In this way he deliberately set out to also aggravatethese last talks.

8. Chamberlain and Halifax – to mention just the men responsible – did misleadand did incite the House of Commons and world opinion on many particulars.171)

This stance cannot be explained by saying that London took their bearingsfrom Italy’s secret affirmation to stay out of a war (18 August and 1 September1939), as well as from the information supplied by German resistance adherents,according to whom the majority of the German people was against Hitler andrequiring only a display of firm language from the British government to bringabout a putsch within the Reich.*) The pushing by the conductors of “publicopinion” in Britain and the USA, as well as that of the advisers in the ForeignOffice, but also the position and ultimate objective of the British government,had been decided before these pieces of information were known. Concerningthe atmosphere in London during the last days of peace, there is a range ofdocuments produced for the historian to see. Here are just a few:

Chamberlain in a private letter to his sister of 10 September 1939:

171) F. Lenz, op. cit., vol. I, p. 507: Analysis of Chamberlain’s speech in the House of Commonson 1 September 1939.

*) Suchlike snippets of information had been supplied to London already since 1934-35 withunceasing regularity. I. Colvin, op. cit., pp. 125-126, 135, 210, 234-237, 281, 315, 331 seq.


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“The final long-drawn-out agonies that preceded the actual declaration ofwar were as nearly unendurable as could be. We were anxious to bring thingsto a head, but there were three complications – the secret communicationsthat were going on with Göring and Hitler through a neutral intermediary, theconference proposal of Mussolini, and the French anxiety to postpone theactual declaration as long as possible, until they could evacuate their womenand children, and mobilize their armies. There was very little of this that wecould say in public.” 172)

The Polish Ambassador, Raczynski, wrote:

“Later that evening [2 September 1939] Duncan Sandys came to see me atthe Embassy. He told me that he, Churchill and their friends would not giveway and that they could count not only on moral support from the LabourParty, but on a large section of the Conservatives. All were resolved not tocapitulate, and if Chamberlain were to weaken once again, he would beoverthrown.” 173)

Sir Horace Wilson, Chamberlain’s closest collaborator, on 2 September 1939to the press Counsellor of the German embassy in London, Dr. Fritz Hesse:

“England is resolved upon war, and is no longer keen on a compromise.”174)

That was the reply to a compromise request, which the Reich Foreign Ministervon Ribbentrop had transmitted by telephone on the 2 September to the pressCounsellor of the German embassy in London:

“The Führer is prepared to withdraw from Poland and to offer compensa-tion for damage done thus far, on the condition that we get Danzig and theroad through the Corridor, provided Britain takes on the role of mediator inthe German-Polish conflict. You are authorized by the Führer to submit thisproposal to the British Cabinet and to take up negotiations on this immediate-ly.” 175)

The British historian, A.J.P. Taylor:

“Ministers, led by Halifax, warned Chamberlain that the government wouldfall unless it sent an ultimatum to Hitler before the House met again...

172) K. Feiling, op. cit., p. 416.173) E. Raczynski, op. cit., p. 29.174) Die Tat, Zürich, 26 November 1952; and I. Colvin, op. cit., p. 331.175) F. Hesse, Das Spiel um Deutschland, p. 210.


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In this curious way the French, who had preached resistance to Germanyfor twenty years, appeared to be dragged into war by the British, who had fortwenty years preached conciliation. Both countries went to war for that partof the peace settlement which they had long regarded as least defensible...

Such were the origins of the second World war, or rather of the war betweenthe three Western Powers over the settlement of Versailles; a war which hadbeen implicit since the moment when the first war ended.” 176)

The British Foreign Secretary, shortly after the ultimatum to Germany:

“We have now forced Hitler into war, so that he can no longer cancel onepart after the other of the Versailles Treaty by peaceful means.” 177)

The diplomat, Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, being in the immediate vicinity of LordHalifax, could add his own witty remark:

“Lord Halifax seemed relieved that we had taken our decision [of the 3September]. He called for beer, which was brought down by a sleepy ResidentClerk in pyjamas. We laughed and joked…” 178)

BBC- London shortly after the outbreak of war:

“Hitler has started the war but he cannot bring it to an end.” 179)

Or to put it another way: One would not allow it that he should bring it to anend, no matter what the existing state of affairs!

Had not Lloyd George been expounding, already on the 19 May 1939 in theHouse of Commons, the strategy of a lengthy and ever widening war? He was notalone amongst the British parliamentarians in holding this view:

“‘The main military purpose and scheme of the dictators is to producequick results, to avoid a prolonged war. A prolonged war never suits dictators’.And in order not to permit a quick victory of the dictators Lloyd George thoughtit extremely necessary to bring into being as quickly as possible a tripleagreement against them.” 180)

176) A.J.P. Taylor, op. cit., pp. 277-278.177) Nation Europa, 1/1954, p. 46.178) I. Kirkpatrick, The Inner Circle, p. 144.179) R. Fiedler, Im Teufelskreis – Krieg ohne Frieden, p. 151.180) I.M. Maisky, Who helped Hitler? p. 127.


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One would do well to read the original version from Lloyd George, whichWinston Churchill called “words of wisdom”:

“The main military purpose of the Dictators and scheme of the dictators isto produce quick results, to avoid a prolonged war. A prolonged war neversuits dictators. A prolonged war like the Peninsular War wears down, and thegreat Russian defence, which produced no great military victory for theRussians, broke Napoleon. Germany’s ideal is now, and always has been, awar which is brought to a speedy end. The war against Austria in 1866 did notlast more than a few weeks, and the war in 1870 was waged in such a way thatit was practically over in a month or two. In 1914 plans were made withexactly the same aim in view, and it was very nearly achieved; and they wouldhave achieved it but for Russia. But from the moment they failed to achieve aspeedy victory the game was up. You may depend upon it that the great militarythinkers of Germany have been working out the problem, what was the mistakeof 1914, what did they lack, how can they fill up the gaps and repair theblunders or avoid them in the next war?” 181)

In conformity with this strategy, Chamberlain and Halifax showed a completedisregard, both before and after the start of the war, for the Baltic States, forPoland, for Italy – to say nothing of Germany – but also treated France, willingfor peace, in the same manner, when they

a) caught France unaware at the end of March 1939 with the guarantee toPoland;

b) rejected immediately and with finality the mediation attempts on Mussoli-ni’s part from the 31 August and the 2 September – for the convening of a con-ference for the 5 September – and, thereby, rendered ineffective the approval forthis plan from Paris;

c) on the 3 September, high-handedly, without consulting the ally, sent a two-hour ultimatum to Germany and were urging Paris shortly after that to followsuit.

Ten minutes before this ultimatum from London expired, at 10.50 a.m. (3September), Dahlerus in Berlin announced to the British Foreign Office that Göringhad received formal permission from Hitler to fly to London in order to reach arational resolution (suspension of all hostilities on the condition that the troopsremain at their current fronts for the duration of the talks).

“Mr Dahlerus telephoned to the Foreign Office at 10.50 a.m. to say thatthe German Government had drafted their reply, which was on its way to us.It should reach us by 11, though he could not guarantee that.

181) W. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. I, book I, “The Gathering Storm”, p. 291.


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As a last resort, might he suggest that Field-Marshal Göring should flyover to London to discuss matters?

The Secretary of State sent a reply to the effect that our position had beenknown to the German Government for some time, and we could not nowdelay our procedure.” 182)

This telephone conversation took place half an hour after a previous telephonecall, in which Dahlerus had told an official of the Foreign Office, Mr. Roberts,that the German side were most anxious to give satisfactory assurances to theBritish government not to violate the independence of Poland. “However, neverin world history had an army withdrawn before negotiations”.182)

Shortly after that Great Britain declared war on Germany, and at 5.00 p.m.France did likewise. Hereby was the Poland conflict turned into a European war.The same coterie, but also Stalin, the world-revolutionary, would see to it thatthere would be a war of world-wide dimensions, that there would be an all-outwar and that there would be an unbelievable brutalizing in the conduct of the war.

On this 3 September 1939, however, Winston Churchill announced to hiscountry and to the world:

“In this solemn hour it is a consolation to recall and to dwell upon ourrepeated efforts for peace. All have been ill-starred, but all have been faithfuland sincere... This moral conviction alone affords that ever-fresh resiliencewhich renews the strength and energy of people in long, doubtful and darkdays. Outside, the storms of war may blow and the lands may be lashed withthe fury of its gales, but in our own hearts this Sunday morning there is peace.Our hands may be active, but our consciences are at rest.” 183)

As far as Lord Halifax is concerned, who, already on the 21 July had rejectedHenderson’s suggestion of stopping or, rather, restricting press polemics184), thereexists a further incriminating quotation from the last day of peace:

“There was disquiet in the British House of Commons. A Member ofParliament from the Labour Party met the British Foreign Secretary, LordHalifax, in the lobby on 2 September. ‘Are you still hopeful?’ he asked. ‘Ifyou mean hopeful for war,’ answered Halifax, ‘then your hope will be fulfilledtomorrow’. ‘Thank God!’ replied the representative of the Labour Party.” 185)

182) Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, vol. VII, doc. 762.183) Winston Churchill, His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, vol. VI, p. 6152: Speech in the House

of Commons; also Into Battle.184) Documents on British Foreign Policy, vol. VI, doc. 395.185) M. Freund, “Bis zur Stunde kein Friede”, Frankfurter Allgemeine, 1 September 1959, 12 October

1963.


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“War-Guilt” before the Nuremberg Tribunal

When on the 30 January 1937 the Reich government withdrew solemnly theunder-duress-extracted declaration that Germany was responsible for the FirstWorld War, not one of the Versailles Powers objected. This did not stop them,however, from once more dishing up in 1939, as in the years following down tothis day [1965], the worn-out War-Guilt Lie from 1914, so as to create a “Super-Versailles” that would exceed all the formerly perpetrated violations against justice,morals, sense of decency and truth. “The enforcing of decisions with violenceand destruction, making a mockery of the right of self-determination, this threatto world peace behind the mask of the peace treaty”,1) “which could become aneven bigger disaster for the world than the war”,2) “which will destroy the idea ofjustice for many generations and render impossible a world order founded onmoral principles”,3) “this system of treaties that produces a permanent state ofwar”,4) “which means the continuation of war under a different guise”,5) “theseintrigues and dishonourable manoeuverings which have turned the VersaillesTreaty and the other four into the biggest fraud in history”,6) – were again, inPotsdam and Nuremberg in 1945-1946, put in the statute book for further politicaldevelopment. Instead of the 27 states standing in for the “conscience of the world”,this time there would be gathered an assemblage from the rank and file, evenmore ignorant, misinformed and hungry for the spoils, with the promise ofhenceforth “playing a role” in world politics (repeatedly emphasized by F.D.Roosevelt). Although it had become, after 1918, more and more obvious over theyears that by solely charging the defeated enemy, the problem of the war cannotbe perceived, solved or be “judged” in a historical-scientific context, these sameVictor Powers in 1945 in Potsdam and Nuremberg were basing their way ofthinking once more on Versailles, just as they had done once before after the First

1) H. Lutz, Verbrechervolk im Herzen Europas? p. 73: Statement by Reich Chancellor [1919] Bauer(SPD).

2) ibid., p. 53: Statement by Field Marshal and Prime Minister of South Africa, J.C.Smuts.3) ibid., p. 57: From the German counter-proposals to the Allies in 1919.4) ibid., p. 264: Statement by the former Italian Prime Minister Francesco Nitti.5) F. Nitti, La Tragedia dell’Europa – che farà America? p. 17 (German ed., Die Tragödie Europas

– und Amerika? p. 16) : Remark by French President Georges Clemenceau.6) ibid., p. 29 ( German ed., p. 25).


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World War. Nothing has changed in the judging of the defeated adversary. Anydoubts about his “guilt” were not to be tolerated; at the most a discussion aboutthe argumentation of the prosecution was allowed. General Nikitchenko, describedas a “murderer many times over of his own comrades”, stated at the time of theNuremberg “War Criminal Trials”:

“The guilt of the accused has already been decided by the heads ofgovernments at Moscow and Teheran; the one remaining task of this court is,therefore, merely to give them the punishment they deserve.” 7)

The repeatedly made proposals from the Weimar government, to have aninternational commission examine the question of War-Guilt by analysing allthe documents, were refused by the Victor Powers after 1919. In the year 1945,these self-same Allies, now together with the Soviet Union, nipped in the budany such request from the outset: they imprisoned the German leadership in sofar as their members had not been immediately liquidated, convicted them inaccordance with the communistic collective-guilt-criminal justice, dismemberedand divided Germany, and made any tendency or stirring disagreeable to theOccupation Power, also that of an intellectual spirit, a punishable offence.Propaganda and revenge-justice transformed the war-lies into “historical truths”,into purpose-made political dogmas. The war objective of the Allied camp, “aneven more ruthless Versailles”, was put into effect also with regards to thedefaming of the principles and morality of the German people. Slogans,expressions, errors of judgement taken to the furthest extremes, prevention of afactual criticism, the moralistic pariah treatment of the vanquished enemy and,for themselves, the screening of their own wrongful actions – nobody caredwhat means and methods were used to achieve their ends. If one did not supportat full volume the dogma of “sole German guilt”, one had to face being sentencedas “Fascist War Criminal” or have his professional occupation ruined for being“incorrigible”, a “stick-in-the-mud” or a “reactionary”.

Nuremberg, city of Party Rallies and Conferences held by the fallen regime,was the choice for the performance of sentencing the “Fascist War Criminals”,those German prisoners to whom the judges of the Inter-Allied Military Tribunal(IMT) were referring to as “criminals” even before the start of proceedings.The charges to be brought were exclusively made against these, and only these.Given an “interpretation of the law” such as this, the historical task to which

7) Report on the International Conference on Military Trials, Washington, State Department, 1949,pp. 104-106, 303; quoted in Nation Europa, 2/1962, p. 45.


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the IMT laid claim, was bound to be a failure from the start. The Americanchief prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, declared unequivocally:

“We must not let ourselves be drawn into a trial of the causes of thewar…” 8)

“I believe that this trial would do much harm if it examined the politicalcauses of the war.” 9)

These and similar lines of reasoning were used during the years 1943-1945by numerous British and American voices who, instead of having to bother withlegal proceedings, wanted to seize hold of “Hitler and his cronies” for wholesaleexecution. US Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, believed that

“in a trial, deceitful defence argumentation could still produce a dangerouspropaganda effect.” 10)

Yet, in spite of this, the Allies decided, with the Moscow Declaration of 30October 1943 and the London Agreement of 8 August 1945, upon holding showtrials, in furtherance of their political interests and utilizing the “law courts” fortheir propaganda. The jurisdiction of the “International Military Tribunal” fortrying the “major war criminals” was defined in a Statute [‘The Charter’] in sucha way that no other outcome was at all possible than the beforehand agreed upon“punishment of the accused”. In this Statute it was stipulated, amongst other things,that the tribunal

– must reject objections raised on grounds of interest with regard to the Judgesnominated by the victor (Article 3);

– had as their area of responsibility to charge exclusively members of the“Axis Powers” (Article 6);

– was to declare invalid the appeal of the defendants to the principle of actingunder orders [‘superior orders’] (Article 8);

– “shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence”, instead “it shall adoptand apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and nontechnical procedure”(Articles18 and 19);

– “shall not require proof of facts of common knowledge but shall take judicialnotice thereof” (Article 21); (this would, of course, cover all propaganda theses!).

“At this conference [London 8 August 1945], prosecutors and judgeconsulted before the trial upon the method by which the accused should be

8) M. Bardèche, Nuremberg II ou les Faux Monneyeurs, p. 29. 9) Nation Europa, 5/1959, pp. 53-54.10) G. Moltmann, Amerikas Deutschlandpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg, pp. 114, 115.


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brought to punishment. The minutes of the conference have been publishedby the Americans. No effort was made to provide a general statement ofinternational law by which the actions of the accused should be judged. Instead,these actions were considered and a law drafted expressly to exclude thedefences that it was anticipated the accused might advance.

Such was the Statute of Nuremberg, the basis for the war criminal trials…The result of war crime trials has been not to create international law but

to destroy that law of nations which our ancestors patiently built up over thecenturies.” *)

Irrespective of this Statute that was perverting the course of justice, thedistinguishing feature of the Nuremberg proceedings was the countlessinfringements of the law. It is in contravention of every legal norm

- when the victor is also the judge and has nominated himself for this office;- when his function is world prosecuting attorney and lawmaker at the same

time;- when he condemns actions which hitherto were neither provided for by statute

nor were in contravention of international law (e.g. the preparatory planning of acampaign by a General Staff officer or the supplying of arms by a contractor);

- when he repeals legal clauses and systems of values which were binding onthe defendants and the entire defeated Nation and establishes arbitrarily new normsthat fulfil his purposes: “Crimes against Peace”, “Crimes against Humanity”,“Support of an unlawful State” etc., and then will interpret these normsdialectically;

- when he declares German reprisals in partisan warfare retroactively as crimesand punishable as criminal acts, while the causes provoking them are disregarded;

- when he withholds documents from the defence while serving otherdocuments at short notice, refuses witnesses for the defence and rejects the motionto hear evidence, and when the defence is threatened also with arrest and, indeed,is taken into custody just as soon as they make a protest against some breach ofthe law;11)

- when he distorts the meaning of documents by means of shortening, byfalsifying or by shifting of emphasis, and when he then adjudges as authenticthese papers so badly mangled or totally falsified;

- when he trivializes or conceals decisive interconnections and contexts;- when witnesses are being kept in long-term imprisonment and are put under

*) R.T. Paget, Manstein – His Campaigns and His Trial, pp. 66-67.11) F. Utley, The High Cost of Vengeance, pp. 172-174 (162-181).


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pressure with threats of handing them over to the GPU or bringing charges againstthem, thus coercing them into making false statements and committing perjury;

- when he allows agents of the Victor Power to appear as witnesses;- when he brings in procedures that label just about everybody as members of

a “criminal organization” and, therefore, can be treated as a criminal offender;- when he, after having availed himself of his newly created “legal clauses”

for his vengeful purposes, cancels them again immediately, thus denying them toall other nations – and, consequently, to future international law.

The fact that all these manipulations had to be carried out in order to justifysentences arranged beforehand, although the biased make-up of the Tribunal andthe one-sided charges would already assure the outcome, is proof of just howshaky the ground was for the prosecution.

“When punitive actions do no longer require the proof of individual guiltas a prerequisite, but rather symbolize collective retaliatory measures, or whenthey are even meant to influence the entire sociological strata of a nation forpolitical aims, then they become eminently political measures. Such disregardfor the juridical character of a war crime punishment became very clear to theAllies in the conference year of 1943.” 10)

When Stalin in 1943 in Teheran proposed the shooting of 50,000 Germanofficers, making it into a war objective, he was not at all prompted by

“the aim of punitive action for particular crimes. He regarded this measuremerely as an appropriate way of breaking Germany’s military strength forever.” 10)

By the year 1946 nothing had changed in this basic position of the Alliedconception.

During the last 50 years the German nation and their governmental systemshave been appraised in extremely varied ways and, in fact, according to themomentary interests of several Great Powers – right up to the statement of HarryTruman, former Senator and later President of the United States of America:

“If we find that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, but if Russiais winning we ought to help Germany, and in this way they will kill each otherall the more thoroughly.” 12)

12) New York Times, 23 June 1941, cited by B.S. Telpuchovski, “The Soviet History of the GreatPatriotic War 1941-1945” (Russian), p. 39.


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13) H. Lutz, op. cit., p. XVII.14) P. Kleist, Auch Du warst dabei, p. 400.

Based on this attitude, the value judgement thus established was turned into aworld-wide dogma in 1945-1946 by changing this totally one-sided basic principleof the victorious enemy into an “international legal title” and “historical truth” –by virtue of force of arms. The contrivances that had become “necessary” in thisway for the perversion of the course of justice also required from the Inter-AlliedMilitary Tribunal an uncritical acceptance of the Allied war policies and waraims. In a like manner, this same IMT had to cut off rigorously references toVersailles, “the root of the matter of the Second World War”,13) as also toresponsibilities which, in the period between the two world wars, are restingclearly on the shoulders of the enemies of Germany. One had no hesitation aboutconstructing “international law” on such artificially concocted premises, and thisbefore the public at large throughout the world. Furthermore, the IMT did not atall take account of the factors that had led to the collapse of parliamentarydemocracy and, consequently, the Weimar system, though not, however, forreasons of it being a question of German internal affairs, seeing that all the internalaffairs that appeared to be incriminating in the German Reich between 1933 and1945 – and which no foreigner is authorized to pass judgement on – were broughtinto play.

How can it be reconciled with the maxims of the law if a state (the USSR), atthe beginning of war, is on the side of the aggressor (Hitler’s), holding his enemies(Britain, France, Poland) responsible for the outbreak of war; then, at the end ofthe war, puts all the blame on this “aggressor”, but, some time after the liquidationof the “aggressor” state, once more transfers a large part of the list of sins backonto those (Britain, France, the United States) that had been pronounced guiltyinitially? How can it be reconciled with the maxims of the law, when Germany ischarged with a war of aggression against Poland and that the Soviet Union, havinglikewise attacked Poland in 1939 and, after their victory in 1945, once moreincorporated into her own state Eastern Poland, is placed on the Bench asHonourable Judge?

“There is hardly a legal principle that was not trampled under foot atNuremberg: in the absence of a law there can be neither crime nor punishment,acting under orders or duress is not punishable, nobody must be removedfrom his judiciary, nobody may be the judge of his own case, nobody may becalled to account for the deeds of others. After the unconditional surrenderthat was all yesterday’s law, no longer valid for the judges at Nuremberg.” 14)


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Indeed, there never has been a victor, up to now, that destroyed quite sosystematically and utterly the entire political literature of his defeated enemyand, consequently, deprived historical research of it, as was done with the NationalSocialist literature after the German surrender 1945 – in all occupation zones.“The public at large throughout the world” pass over this fact without any hint ofcriticism and, with inconceivable self-satisfaction, carry on with their postulates:“freedom of thought and speech”, “equal rights and the right of self-determination”,“democracy and a state under the rule of law”. It matters not to them that almostevery possibility of an intellectual defence has been taken from the prostrateGerman nation.

“Every fibre of our being revolts at the thought that highly civilized nationsare allowed once more [1945] to appeal not to the judgement of the law but tothat of might.” 15)

How true was the statement from the Indian representative at the war crimetrials in Tokyo 1947-48, Judge Rahabinode Pal:

“The farce of a trial of vanquished leaders by the victors was itself anoffence against humanity.” 16)

It is significant of the Nuremberg and Tokyo proceedings that not one singlejudge has, as yet, shown willing to answer to the serious criticism appearing inmany countries with regard to this “justice”. Such a judge would have been obligedto discard the legal maxim: If a breach of the law is to be redressed then the legalproceedings themselves must be lawful.

The United Nations Organization covered up this blindfolded law. It hascondoned the extermination campaign against Germany along with the aims andresulting consequences, just as much as it condoned the Nuremberg and Tokyotrials – all in the name of “world conscience”. Having come of age since theWashington Pact of 1 January 1942, it simply sees itself as the child of the coalitionforces against the Third Reich and Japan. Only those states were admitted thatwould support, without any criticism, the war aims and the methods of Alliedwarfare, those that would fight against these “enemies of humanity” and wouldrecognize the United Nations’ Charter, including Articles 53 and 107, whichexpressly declared lawful all wartime and post-war measures against “any statewhich during the Second World War has been an enemy of any signatory of the

15) H. Herda, Die Schuld der Anderen, p. 181.16) F.J.P. Veale, Advance to Barbarism, p. 176.


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present Charter”.17) The General Assembly of the thus founded UNO, in order tosafeguard against anticipated repercussions of the “war criminal trials” on futureinternational law, has refused expressly, in a basic resolution of December 1948,to recognize the “IMT-legal maxims” as valid international law. Though, to besure, for the sentencing of Germany the United Nations sanction their use to thisday! It is a grotesque reality that the “law” applied against Germany since thattime has not only lost its legal force, but has even been explicitly denounced bythe universal forum of its initiators – without, however, rehabilitating Germany’sname or, rather, Germany’s politics or even just setting into motion a fair historicalexamination into the causes of the war.

British historian A.J.P. Taylor expounded on the documents of the Nuremberg“war criminal trials”:

“Though these [Nuremberg] documents look imposing in their endlessvolumes, they are dangerous material for a historian to use. They werecollected, hastily and almost at random, as a basis for lawyers’ briefs. This isnot how historians would proceed. The lawyer aims to make a case; the historianwishes to understand a situation. The evidence which convinces lawyers oftenfails to satisfy us; our methods seem singularly imprecise to them. But evenlawyers must now have qualms about the evidence at Nuremberg. Thedocuments were chosen not only to demonstrate the war-guilt of the men ontrial but to conceal that of the prosecuting Powers.” 18)

An American historian:

“Even more important than the travesties with respect to law and equitywas the assurance that these trials make wars far more brutal and ruthless inthe future. In all wars to come the losers will be regarded as the aggressors,no matter what the facts, and will be punished accordingly. Hence, nomethods of wartime destruction, however horrible, can be spared to producevictory, at whatever human and material cost. The trials will, therefore,produce exactly the reverse of the results which were represented as theirmain justification.” 19)

17) S. Boratünskij, “Diplomacy in the Period of the Second World War” (Russian), pp. 152-154.18) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 13.19) H.E. Barnes, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, p. 536.


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Documents against HitlerDemands for Living Space (Lebensraum)

in Mein Kampf

The references in Mein Kampf (pages 732, 740-742, 757) to the question – yetto be solved – of Lebensraum (living space) in the East (Russia) are often givenas the proof for Hitler’s belligerent intentions and long-term planning of conquestand, consequently, for the war guilt.1) It is ludicrous to want to assert that Hitler,onward from the time in prison in Landsberg 1925 up to his death in 1945, washolding in his hands the initiative in the sphere of world politics, while all theother, considerably more powerful, sovereign states in Europe and throughoutthe world, were only counteracting defensively to his moves, it being beyondtheir capability to take active measures. This, though, would be the cause-and-effect conclusion one would reach, if one were to offer Mein Kampf as an“evidence-resource” in the foreign policy field. If, on the other hand, one callsinto play Mein Kampf as underlying the investigation for appraising the war guiltquestion, then this, too, would only be a meaningful testimony if one were tocompare it, at the same time, with all the public utterances made by French,British, Polish and Soviet publicists and politicians during the nineteen twenties.Only when put within this framework would it be possible to assess the level ofagitation prevailing at that period in the domestic and foreign political field. Onlywhen put within that time frame would it become clear that Hitler was not out ofplace with Mein Kampf. Taking the same measuring rod, by which nowadays isdeduced, without further thought, Hitler’s war guilt from Mein Kampf, as a basisfor the former works of Winston Churchill, for the stated objectives of Poincaréor Clemenceau, Masaryk, Benes, Pilsudski, Lloyd George, Lenin or Stalin, oreven just of the representatives of the German parties during the Weimar time,

1) Hitler’s determination for war is shown in numerous other “documents” and examples, in additionto the charges dealt with here. The author has treated these cases in separate works. See in NationEuropa 5/1961 and 5/1963, “The Gleiwitzer Station Incident”; ibid 5/1963, “Outright Falsifications– Quarterly for Contemporary History versus Hoggan and Taylor” deals with:– Operation “Green” – Plan of Attack on Czecho-Slovakia;– Hitler’s “Stirring-up” of the Hungarians against Czecho-Slovakia;– Hitler’s “Offering the Ukraine to Poland”;– The German Armament Level in 1939 – “Hitler’s Secret Memorandum for the Second Four-Year-Plan”.


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then war guilt or, that is to say, determination for war, could be ascribed to thesein much the same irresponsible fashion. In 1932 Professor Theodor Heusscommented on the aforementioned works:

“Bound up with the romantic memories of the grand colonizationachievements of the German Middle Ages that were taken across the Elbe tothe East, is the present, quite impossible, solution which the Versailles systemhas enforced upon the German Eastern borders. Because there has been createdhere an unbearable source of irritation and friction, so the emotional sentimentwould tend towards this direction all the more easily, recognizing the delicatenature of the European problems in the East.” 2)

These reflections from a politician, who was himself averse to the NationalSocialist movement, show at least that in the Weimar Republic Mein Kampf, whosetitle was originally to have been “Four and a half Years of Struggle against Lies,Stupidity and Cowardice”,3) was regarded as the outburst of a temperamentemotionally charged by the distress of the Fatherland, not, however, as an agendafor a belligerent policy – by Hitler’s followers too. It is about the utterances of apublic speaker and party leader, not a mature statesman. As a statesman Hitler didnot – until the outbreak of war – pursue such aims. Even the IMT prosecution atNuremberg in 1945-46 could not manage to prove from the German secretdocuments that the Czech crisis or the Polish campaign or even the Russiancampaign4) were connected with German plans for conquest, for settlement or forextermination, let alone to have been based on them. Rather, it could be provedthat underlying all of these fateful stages were entirely different causes, reasons,motives and considerations. Hitler would doubtless have done well, as a statesman,to have expunged from Mein Kampf these utterances from that time. Nevertheless,it should be emphasized that he repeatedly had stated in public that he was not awriter but a politician and should, therefore, be judged on his politics, not by eachword of his “musings behind bars”, originally meant to appear as a “series ofleading articles for the Völkischer Beobachter”.

“I am not a writer, but a statesman. I shall write the revision of MeinKampf into the book of History,” 5)

2) T. Heuß, Hitlers Weg, p. 99.3) K. Ploetz, Auszug aus der Geschichte (1939, appendix), p. 21.4) P. Fabry, Der Hitler-Stalin Pakt 1939-1941; Nation Europa 11/1958; 9/1960; 10/1961 in regard to

the Russian Campaign.5) O. Abetz, Das offene Problem, p. 78.


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declared Hitler on 21 February 1936 in an interview with the correspondent ofthe French daily Paris-Soir, and he then had this interview, together with thecontroversial parts from Mein Kampf, published on the front page of all the Germannewspapers (“The publication of this interview was to run into unusual difficultiesin Paris”! 5))

“That much I do know: Had I foreseen in 1924 that I would becomeChancellor of the Reich, I would not have written the book.” 6)

Hitler, without a doubt, had no time as statesman to rectify his book. Isolatedcorrections would remain incomplete. Mein Kampf had been written in the earlyperiod of the NSDAP, and it was closely attached to the politics of the day, thejournalism and the agitation of its time. In the same way that the comments andobservations regarding France were born of the post-war situation of that timeand the French occupation of the Ruhr region, so, likewise, must Hitler’s ideasabout the East in Mein Kampf not be regarded as a definite foreign policy guide-line of the Third Reich vis-à-vis a much strengthened Soviet Union. Mein Kampfwas neither a catechism of the National Socialist worldview (Weltanschauung),nor a theoretical foundation stone for the domestic, foreign, economic, social orcultural policies of the German Reich. Rather the programme of the NSDAP,which did not assume a more concrete shape until later, Hitler’s maturing statureover the years – one only need to appraise his speeches made as statesman – themany unpredictable influences from home and abroad affecting German politics,these were to determine the direction of the NSDAP when wearing the mantle ofstate, not the book Mein Kampf which, with agitating intent, had been hastilyjotted down during a time of an internal political power struggle.

As for the claims for Lebensraum in Mein Kampf, the following deliberationsshould be taken into account, which might have affected Hitler’s world of thought:

a) Hitler wanted – in this respect all contemporary historians are of one mind– to win over Britain. As a realist, he knew that he had better remove Britain’sconcern about a possible German threat by announcing, from the outset, that theGerman direction of interests lay in the East.

b) Hitler also tried to calm any fears from the countries on the Continentwhich could have arisen from the prospective argument of a demographic Germanpopulation pressure for those countries. He wanted to make it clear that he was

6) H. Frank, Im Angesicht des Galgens, p. 39; P. Kleist, Auch Du warst dabei, p. 143; IMT, vol. X,p. 263 – Statement from J. von Ribbentrop.


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not even making any claims on France; he tried to moderate France’s hostileattitude by orientating Germany’s line of vision towards the East.

c) In the face of Communist ideology and Soviet might, the tenor and basicnature of which Hitler had understood much sooner than others had, he realizedthat he would not have achieved any more with a friendly attitude towards theUSSR than he might lose with a determined policy of independence.

d) It mattered to Hitler to gain some understanding in the world for Germany’sshortage of space, for the crammed existence of her population and for the injusticeof the Versailles deprivation of territory – especially in the East.

e) Hitler’s Lebensraum-explanations were meant to counter the Weimartendencies for relinquishment and appeasement.

f) Expressed in figures, the German nation had trebled within one century, butthe German Lebensraum, on the other hand, had considerably decreased. NoGerman politician could overlook these realities. Still unknown at that time werethe possibilities of feeding a growing population, even in a limited space, withthe aid of industrial and technical means. At any rate, the dire economic straitsduring the Weimar period did not foster such hopes.

And when, as a last resort, a French Prime Minister, such as Clemenceau, haddeclared that, planned within a programme, it would be quite a good thing for 25million Germans to die, since there were too many of them in the world, thensuch a recommendation would naturally have provoked in Hitler precisely theopposite reaction, namely, to attempt everything possible to secure for his peoplethe essential means of existence and the claims to Lebensraum derived fromhistorical rights.

“Key Documents” of the IMTon Hitler’s Non-Public Speeches

At the so-called Nuremberg “war crime trials” in 1945-46, the publicprosecution submitted some documents which refer to secret discussions held byHitler. The Inter-Allied Military Tribunal, which called itself falsely“International Military Tribunal”, upgraded the status of these papers to“documents”, indeed to “key documents”, because they allegedly provide the“key” to Hitler’s foreign policy, seeing that Hitler’s politics and Hitler’s realaims from 1937-1939 are reflected in these and only these. The German defendantswere convicted partly on the strength of these “documents”.


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On all of the IMT’s “key documents” dealing with Hitler’s non-publicaddresses, their origin, authenticity, contents and date are so very controversialthat every objective expert from the outset – i.e. immediately after their “discovery”in the year 1945 – should have rejected “these documents” as forgeries andfalsifications, which in part has happened already, albeit couched in diplomaticallyguarded form, before the Nuremberg Tribunal. Although the Victorious Powersin 1945 confiscated all the files of the Reich government, took personal controlof them and analysed them, though refusing permission outright to neutralcommissions to examine them and denying the defence in Nuremberg theirfrequent requests for access to any evidence to prove the origin of doubtfuldocuments, this did not at all prevent the “historians” from accepting uncriticallyand disseminating that which the IMT utilizes as prosecution evidence-“documents”, which they have included in their volumes of “documents” andpassed off as “documents from captured German files”, irrespective of whetherthis is true or not. Consequently, the “key documents” had so much publicity thatany historian striving for objectivity will need to tackle the problem.

The first of these “key documents” is the so-called “HossbachMemorandum”.

The “Hossbach Memorandum”Hitler’s Address to the Commanders-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht

on 5 November 1937

The so-called “Hossbach Memorandum” is not available in any shape or form,neither as an original nor as a copy, nor has it ever been.1) There exists merely thephotocopy of a typewritten copy which had been slipped privately (the sourceremained unknown), without a signature, to the Americans in 1945. Thisphotocopy is since that time, contrary to the truth, accepted as “in the keeping ofthe German government in the archives and also captured therein”. This photocopywas upgraded to prosecution document and was marked “386-PS, exhibit US25”.2)

The “secretary”, Colonel Hossbach, a member of the opposition against Hitler,does not vouch, according to his own statement, for “every single word” and has

1) G. Meinck, Hitler und die deutsche Aufrüstung 1933-1937, p. 236.2) Festschrift for Herbert Kraus, Mensch und Staat in Recht und Geschichte, published by Göttinger

Arbeitskreis, p. 445: Article by H.G. Seraphim, “Nachkriegsprozesse und zeitgeschichtlicheForschung”.


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refused to authenticate the “photocopy of the typewritten copy” – PS 386 – thatwas presented by the IMT prosecution as being identical to his original notes.1)

When called as a witness in the IMT-Trial, he stated:

“It is beyond my knowledge as to how one or several typewritten copiesof my one-and-only handwritten minutes could have materialized.” 3)

To this day, the general public still does not know. The truth is that no minuteswere taken officially, and that Colonel Hossbach had written down, by hand,from memory, only five days after the meeting, Hitler’s exposition. His reasonfor doing so remains completely in the dark; he had no such orders. He could notdo shorthand, he had not even taken any notes during the talk and, therefore, hewas not in a position to give a verbatim and complete account of the meeting. Herelied on his memory, as he declared in a notarized affidavit on 18 June 1946.4)

These “notes giving the gist” are all the more questionable, since there existedalready, on the very same 5 November 1937, differences of opinion between theReich War Minister von Blomberg and the Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe,Colonel General Göring, as to what Hitler had actually said and wanted.5) TheCommanders-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe and the Navy, Göring and Admiral Dr.h.c. [honoris causa] Raeder, had already been informed, before the start of themeeting, that Hitler wanted merely to rectify more vigorously the deficiencies inarmament.6) The Colonel General, later Field Marshal, von Brauchitsch, did notlearn about these talks, anyway, until in Nuremberg in 1945.7) Neither the Chiefof Army General Staff, Colonel General Beck, nor the Commander-in-Chief ofthe Army (until 1938), Colonel General von Fritsch, regarded the talks to be ofsufficient importance to inform von Brauchitsch, as the succeeding Commander-in-Chief of Army, about them.8) A later overstating of the importance of the talksloses all credibility, by this factor alone.

Hitler’s expositions are founded on hypothetical considerations which, in theevent of a possible war between Great Britain and Italy, could effect Germanpolicy. There was no talk of planning an offensive war, much less a world war.That is why no decision aiming at an objective of that kind could have beenimposed on the Commanders-in-Chief. A concrete plan was neither proposed nor

3) IMT, vol. XLII, p. 228 seq.4) IMT, vol. XXI, p. 422. In his book Von der militärischen Verantwortlichkeit in der Zeit vor dem

Zweiten Weltkrieg (p. 28), Hossbach mentions, contrary to his IMT declaration, that he had takennotes during the meeting, as also in his book Zwischen Wehrmacht und Hitler, p. 217 seq.

5) IMT, vol. XXVIII, p. 355, doc. PS-1780.6) IMT, vol. XIV, p. 44 seq.7) IMT, vol. XX, p. 620.8) P. Bor, Gespräche mit Halder, p. 113.


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was it devised. Not even any foreign policy guidelines for the coming years werelaid down, but merely possibilities for development were written down, and anyresponse to them was shown.

For the rest, the Reich War Minister von Blomberg had taken over the initiativefor the meeting, “so that differences of opinion between the Reich War Ministerand the Commissioner for the Four Year Plan, with regard to the allocation of rawmaterials to the three branches of the Wehrmacht, would be settled by Hitler’sdecision”.9) The assertion that Hitler had chosen this occasion and this panel (vonBlomberg, von Fritsch, Raeder, Göring, Reich Foreign Minister Baron vonNeurath) 10) to arrange his “testamentary estate” is not convincing. According tothe photocopy that the IMT presented, Hitler, by way of introduction, supposedlyrequested of those present to regard his exposition as “testamentary estate in theevent of his demise”. It makes no sense, however, that Hitler, who used very fewnotes, should have chosen just this circle of five (with Hossbach, six) – withouteven his deputy, Rudolf Hess – to impart to them, without having first recorded itin written form, a “bequest” which, more to the point, did not even provide answersto essential questions. Hermann Göring:

“In so far as the word ‘testament’ has been used, this is in total contradictionto the Führer’s views.” 11)

Judging by the revealed contents, it is equally nonsensical that Hitler wouldhave refused twice to sign Hossbach’s minutes, as he, “for the present, had notime”.12)

Further are there to be found – in conspicuous harmony – both in the “HossbachMemorandum” and also in the other “key documents”, interconnections which,at the time of the conference, were not as yet known, since they happened onlylater: When here in the “Hossbach Memorandum”, for example, Hitler is purportedto have said that a French offensive would probably be brought to a standstill onour Western fortifications, then he could only have said something like that afterthe completion of the West Wall [Siegfried Line]. The undertaking of this WestWall got off the ground in 1936, and construction commenced in 1937, with anestimated construction period of twelve years; this was accelerated only becauseof the Czech mobilization in May 1938. There could hardly be any question of aprotective wall at this point in time.13)

9) F. Hossbach, Zwischen Wehrmacht und Hitler, p. 13710) Colonel on the General Staff, Hossbach was also present in his capacity as Hitler’s Chief Adjutant.11) IMT, vol. IX, p. 344.12) F. Hossbach, op. cit., p. 219.13) B. Müller-Hillebrand, Das Heer 1933-1945, vol. I, p. 39.


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A further means of identifying this photocopy as a forgery can be spotted, asregards contents, in that it cannot be identical to the original transcript of whichno member of the government actually had any knowledge, let alone hadcountersigned, because it has been, apart from its distorted representation andseveral invented sentences, also shortened in its contents. So, for example, thediscussion between Göring, von Blomberg and von Fritsch, is missing.

“Why then did Hitler hold this conference? This question was not asked atNuremberg; it has not been asked by historians. The conference of 5 November1937 was a curious gathering. Only Göring was a Nazi. The others were old-style Conservatives who had remained in office to keep Hitler under control;all of them except Raeder were to be dismissed from their posts within threemonths. Hitler knew that all except Göring were his opponents...

Why did he reveal his inmost thoughts to men whom he distrusted andwhom he was shortly to discharge? This question has an easy answer: he didnot reveal his inmost thoughts. There was no crisis in foreign policy to provokea broad discussion or sweeping decisions. The conference was a manoeuvrein domestic affairs.” 14)

This analysis makes it clear: The so-called “Hossbach Memorandum” doesnot furnish any proof that Hitler had been planning “a conspiracy against peace”;on the contrary, it is a classic example of how the postwar “judiciary” and theirpropaganda “historians” were forced to fall back on the notes of German resistanceadherents and still had to falsify and exaggerate these in order to give such anindictment a veneer of legality.

Hitler’s Address to the German Presson 10 November 1938

The contents of this speech from Hitler, identified after the war, which were,it is true, not available to the IMT in Nuremberg 1945-46, being only a later“discovery”, yet which, nonetheless, are part of the subject matter under discussionhere, chronologically speaking and with regards to contents, are, in a like manner,

14) A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 133, see W. Bross, Gespräche mit HermannGöring wärend des Nürnberger Prozesses, p. 188 – The purpose of the address apparently was “tolight a fire under the breeches of the generals, as their thinking was still too much imprisoned in thenarrow confines of the 100,000-army of men. Of course, they only knew of defence, of keeping-at-bay resistance, of complying with the armament conditions of the Versailles Treaty and of a policyof wait-and-see as to what the League of Nations would do should a neighbouring state attack”.


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passed off as “proof” that Hitler had been planning war for many years. Thefollowing statements, besides others, are found in it:

“In this we have set ourselves many tasks this year, which we aim to reach…with our propaganda. The gradual preparing of the German people is first.Circumstances have forced me to speak for decades almost exclusively ofpeace…

It goes without saying that promoting such a peace propaganda over decadesis not without some risks, because all too easily can the view take hold in theminds of many people that the present regime identifies with the resolve andthe intention to keep the peace at all cost. This, however, would not only leadto a false appraisal of the goals of this system…

Pure necessity was the reason why I was talking for decades only aboutpeace…

They [the German people] must learn to believe in the final victory withsuch fanaticism…” 1)

This “document” is possibly even more doubtful than the “Hossbach-Memorandum”. Leaving aside the absurdity of announcing, a full year ahead ofthe ostensibly planned strike, to the press one’s own intentions for war – a decisionfor attack is usually kept secret! – there were at that time no references made tothis speech in the entire foreign press, and the press at home published noprovocative articles. Since all the German press had apparently interpreted thisaddress by the Führer as moderate and had used it along these lines, so it rendersinvalid from the outset all later attempts that try to construe it as proof for Hitler’sdetermination for war. It is superfluous to point out the explanations from the“Institut für Zeitgeschichte” [“Institute for Contemporary History”] in its quarterlyjournal (Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, no. 2, 1958, p. 175 seq. = QuarterlyJournals for Contemporary History), where it is admitted that the sound recordingof this speech (the only tangible form of evidence) cannot be authenticated inregard to either its physical substance or to its language, and that the record underconsideration, anyway, contains only a part of the alleged speech.

Hitler’s Address to the Senior Officers of the Wehrmachton 23 May 1939

Grand Admiral Raeder described this alleged “document” 079-L, IMT vol.XXXVII, p. 546 seq., the so-called “Schmundt Report”, as “the most abstruse

1) H.A. Jacobsen, 1939-1945, Der Zweite Weltkrieg in Chronik und Dokumenten, p. 91.


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document concerning a Hitler speech in existence, for a large part of thestatements in my opinion makes no sense whatsoever”.1) This sheet of paper(cover-page with 15 pages attached), passed off by the IMT as “document fromthe captured German archives”, has, with the exception of “Top Secret – to behandled by officer only”, no heading, no date, no official stamp to denoteclassified matter, no counter-signature. It is handwritten, giving just the “gist”of the content, and it contains corrections in ink, which were later inserted atsome undefined point in time – not by the hand of Schmundt! Schmundt hadsuccumbed to his injuries on 1 October 1944, having incurred these during theattempted assassination of the 20 July; the authenticity of his signature isdoubtful. The “document” has not been registered in the secret-material-journal,although that would have been imperative for a matter of “Top Secret – to behandled by officer only”. Furthermore, there is no detail given about the numberof copies. The supposed “document” is riddled with contradictions andinconsistencies, consists of statements that have no thematic link, and it hastotally unheard-of political targets:

Contradictions:There are registered on the attendance list, among others, the names of Göring

and Colonel Warlimont.1. Field Marshal Milch denied strongly that Göring had been present, since

it fell to him, as Göring’s Deputy, to go to the Reich Chancellery. So Göringcould most definitely not give an answer to this question.

2. Warlimont’s attendance would appear to be incorrect.Called to attend were the Commanders-in-Chief of the three branches of the

Wehrmacht (von Brauchitsch, Göring, Raeder), the Chief of the High Commandof the Wehrmacht [OKW] (Keitel), and their General Staff Chiefs (Halder,Jeschonnek, Schniewindt), the State Secretary for Aviation (Milch), the ChiefAdjutant of the Wehrmacht assigned to the Führer and Chancellor of the Reichand several adjutants of the Wehrmacht. Warlimont, on the other hand, wassection Chief in the Operational Office of the Wehrmacht[Wehrmachtsführungsamt] in the OKW. Since the Chief of the OKW (Keitel) –Warlimont’s superior – was present, then this reason alone made Warlimont’sattendance unnecessary. As well as Warlimont himself, all other witnessesconfirmed that he had not attended the meeting. Also, Warlimont did not evenhear anything later on about this meeting. Even the Department of NationalDefence in the Operational Office of the Wehrmacht [WFA] did not have Hitler’salleged remarks passed on to them.2)

1) IMT, vol. XIV, p. 47.2) W. Warlimont, Im Hauptquartier der deutschen Wehrmacht 1939-1945, pp. 37, 46.


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According to the “Schmundt Report”, Hitler had been speaking of the essentialneed to get ready for a war of between 15-20 years duration and to prepareaccordingly a plan for an offensive. (In reality he had – and this is also mentionedin other passages of the “document” submitted – kept to the meagre armamentprogramme that was geared to the years 1943-45 in unchanged form, and it hasbeen proved that he was continually striving to strictly minimize an eventualconflict to the point that, after the campaign in France, he even began demobili-zation.)

“The problem ‘Poland’ cannot be disassociated from the showdown withthe West.”

“It must not come to a simultaneous showdown with the West (and theEast).”

“If England wants to intervene in the Polish war, then the fight must beprimarily against England and France, and we must make a lighting attack onHolland” or verbatim: “...it is better to fall upon the West and finish off Polandat the same time.”

“We cannot allow ourselves be drawn into a war on two fronts on accountof Poland.”

“England is the motive force driving against Germany.”“It is not Danzig that is at stake. For us it is a matter of expanding our

living space in the East and making food supplies secure and also solving theproblem of the Baltic States. Food supplies can only be obtained from thinlypopulated areas...

The populations of non-German territories do not render military serviceand are available for labour service...” 3)

Leaving aside the fact that the undefinable and unspecified formula “solutionof the problem” is used too often in this “document” to seem credible, the justquoted comments take it for granted that Germany wanted to incite a war in theWest – which was totally incorrect as far as German foreign policy was concerned.Then it says in other places, quite unexpectedly: “… we are left with the decision:to attack Poland at the first suitable opportunity;” – yet such a decision did not atall exist! Hitler’s later order for attack, of the 31 August 1939, had nothing to do– as has been explained already – with the intention to attack Poland “at the firstsuitable opportunity”.

“The aim will always be to force England to her knees.”“This is the programme of attack...”

3) H.A. Jacobsen, 1939-1945, Der Zweite Weltkrieg in Chronik und Dokumenten, p. 93, also:Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945, Series D, vol. VI, doc. 433.


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“the setting-up of a small planning staff in the OKW for maintaining secrecy...”

When it is implied that Hitler had already revealed his “programme of attack”to precisely those people from whom he was now trying to conceal it with thesetting up of a planning staff and when, on 22 August 1939, he apparentlyelucidated, once more, to these very same people the very same “programme ofattack” in, just to crown it all, a rabble rousing gibberish, so then the farcicalnonsense of such “addresses” becomes evident – and with it the falsification ofthese compositions.

The historian Michael Freund writes about this “protocol”:

“One cannot consider the report as an exact transcript of the speech. Also,it is not at all certain that Hitler wanted to announce his actual intentions andideas during this conference. Some of it is obviously just saying the first thingthat comes into his head.” 4)

Yet in spite of this, Freund awards this paper the “impression of credibility”.What an unscientific way to give an opinion from the pen of an historian!

In this meeting, of which there is not one faultless transcript in existence,were again described in theory merely the different alternatives that would beeffecting German policy, and which would be brought about by a possibledetermination for war on the part of Britain, France and Poland. Since at thisconference no minutes were taken either and therefore no copies were to bedistributed, the deliberations on the situation do not constitute a conclusion reachedby the Führer. The purpose of the meeting was the formation of a research staffwithin the OKW (High Command of the Wehrmacht), which “will have to keepthe Führer informed”. Theirs was the brief to “study” and provide for all possiblemilitary contingencies to ensure military success in a confrontation – as it ispractised by every military leadership in the world. Not even from the “document”079-L – IMT vol. XXXVII, p. 546 – can it be deduced that this planning staff hadbeen given a definite military decision for an operative planning. Had this beenthe case, then perharps one could have inferred “a determination for war”. TheReich Foreign Minister, von Ribbentrop, stated before the IMT-Nuremberg:

“I know that he [Hitler] repeatedly told me that one had to talk with militarymen as if war was about to break out here or there on the next day.” 5)

4) M. Freund, Weltgeschichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, vol. II, p. 348.5) IMT, vol. X, pp. 406-407.


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Yet the former Colonel General Keitel had left this conference on the 23 May1939, believing “that there would be no war” in 1939.6) He was not alone inholding that opinion. Just as an example: Field Marshal von Brauchitsch quotedbefore the IMT-Nuremberg Hitler’s words from this conference:

“I would be an idiot if on account of Poland I were to drift into a war,like those incapable people of 1914.” 7)

Or:

“…and when, in reply to the observation made by Field Marshal Milchthat the production of heavy bombs was quite inadequate in the event of awar, and must be immediately increased, Hitler said that there was ampletime for such measures, the military leaders were bound to conclude fromthis that Hitler had made military preparations only to support the initiatedpolitical moves, but that he would on no account risk an armed conflict withPoland.” 8)

Of course, declarations such as these were naturally not in the submitted“document”. Consequently, they cannot be “protocols”, cannot be proper minutes.

Further contradictions:A number of alleged statements could not have been made, since theya) were not consistent with the conditions prevailing at that time;b) refer to later events, as can be proved.Reference a) Why would Hitler have emphasized that he, therefore, “must

reserve to himself the final order to strike”, when, after all, nobody else but hewould have been responsible for giving such an order, and when he had not issuedany directives preparing for an “attack”?

“Economic relations with Russia are only possible if and when politicalrelations have improved”. – In reality Hitler, at the time of the talks, had still avery reserved attitude towards a political rapprochement with the USSR, whereaseconomic ties with Moscow (concerning the Czech commitments) already existedand, as from the 30 May 1939 onwards, the resumption of negotiations on Tradeand Commerce were proposed by the German side.

Reference b) As has been proved, Hitler had no belligerent intentions towardsthe West. – Yet it is precisely this aspect, which the “Schmundt-Report” tries to

6) IMT, vol. X, p. 577.7) IMT, vol. XX, p. 623; H. Laternser in Verteidigung deutscher Soldaten , p. 29, quotes Hitler’s

words thus: “I would have to be a blundering idiot if, because of the wretched Corridor question,I would slither into a world war, just like the incapable men of 1914”.

8) H. Laternser, op. cit., p. 29; IMT, vol. XVII, pp. 566-567.


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Hitler’s Address to the Commanders-in-Chief of the Wehrmachton 22 August 1939

There were three different versions of this meeting before the IMT:1. vol. XLI, pp. 16-25, doc. Raeder 27 (signed Boehm);2. vol. XXVI, p. 338, doc. 798-PS;3. vol. XXVI, p. 523, doc. 1014-PS (“Second Address”).The “documents” 798-PS and 1014-PS are written on one and the same kind

of paper, with the same typewriter, they have no heading, no stamp indicatingsecret matter, no date, no list of names of those present, no signature. Even lateron, the prosecution did not produce any established proof of origin, as had beenrequested.

make the centre of attention by stressing Britain’s might and minimizing that ofFrance.

“Germany does not bleed to death on land”. – This sentence is nonsensical, ifplaced within the situation in May 1939, but would seem feasible when placedwithin the period after the campaign of France in June 1940.

The same applies to the details given on the tactical operations of the Italianarmy against France: “As for Italy, we shall continue to abide by the MaginotLine break-through, which is to be studied. The Führer thinks this break-throughpossible”. – Since Hitler had not made any preparations for war against the Westand, since he endeavoured to limit a potential conflict with Poland to only thatcountry – even excluding Italy from it – and since, furthermore, both Mussolinias well as Hitler were aware of Italy’s inadequate preparations for war – such aremark from Hitler is nonsensical in May 1939. It would only have beenconceivable in June 1940.

Any further demonstrations of this kind, as contained in this “protocol”, areunnecessary. Subjecting this “document” to a critical source scrutiny will leadone to a devastating appraisal of its value as an historical testimony. The Presidentof the IMT must have been aware of this too when he – in carrying out his politicalassignment – cut short the person who had taken part in this very meeting, i.e.Grand Admiral Raeder, who was attempting to point out the inconsistencies andthe absurdity of this “document” – doc. 079-L. Since then, apparently no publicistor historian has deemed it necessary to resume from where Grand Admiral Raederwas interrupted.


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It was claimed1) that these “two pieces of paper” were taken from the capturedGerman files. Were this to be true, so they ought to be correct formatwise, butthat is not the case. Since it has been established that no minutes were taken atthis meeting either, then the German archives could contain no such text. Theseactualities of the situation are proof, furthermore, that this address from Hitlerwas not in the form of a programme outline and was not the basis of a decision. –From that already emerge contradictions and inconsistencies.

“Document 1014-PS” has the heading “Second Speech by the Führer, on 22August 1939”. It is a fact that Hitler made only one speech on 22 August, whichwas merely interrupted by a coffee break at the Berghof. Mr. Dodd from the IMTprosecution had to admit,1) too, that it was a question of one and the same speech,in spite of the different headings. The two unsigned texts have not only beenprepared on the same typewriter and have been written in the same style, but bothof them use the “first person”. As for Hitler, he cannot be the author, since hewould always have a machine with special characters, and since it would not atall have been in his interest to leave for posterity a written record of “bloodthirstyexpressions” – of all things – totally contrary to his ways. The closing sentence,“Göring answers with thanks to the Führer and the assurance that the armed forceswill do their duty”, breaks with the style of the “first person” and indicates thatneither Hitler nor anyone else present can have drafted the text, because a clerkof the minutes could never have chosen the “first person” format.

There was no need, on the 22 August 1939, for any declaration of loyalty bythe leadership of the Wehrmacht. The origin of the “first person” format is, in allprobability, to be traced to the author of the “minutes” of this meeting, whichwere forwarded to the British embassy in Berlin already on the 23 August 1939.In that version, too, so as to create a more savage impression, the “I-form” hasbeen employed, and the remarks in question are the most primitive platitudesuttered (see the end of this chapter).

According to the minutes submitted – doc. 798-PS – Hitler had started hisspeech stating he wanted to give a political situation-overview, “in order that youmay have insight into the individual elements on which I base my decision toact...” ... “After this, we will discuss military details”. All surviving witnessesdeclared that military details had neither been expected nor had they beendiscussed. Hence, no documentation on such discussions has ever been found. Inany case, a Führer-meeting was not – contrary to what the presented “documents”say – a gathering where a “decision to act” was meant to be taken or, indeed, was

1) IMT, vol. XIV, pp. 76, 77.


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taken. Nothing was decided at this conference that was of any political or militarysignificance.

Although the essay “doc. 1014-PS” is without any introduction, without anysignature, without any date, etc., and is also much too brief to be an account of aspeech from Hitler, and despite meaning and content being nonsensical, contra-dictory and incoherent, these two “pieces of paper” were also judged to be a“document”. Counsel for the Defence of Grand Admiral Raeder, Dr. Siemers,had this to say about it:

“Most important words in this document have constantly been repeatedby the Prosecution during these 5 or 6 months: namely, the words ‘Destructionof Poland, main objective… Aim: elimination of vital forces, not arrival at acertain line.’ These words were not spoken, and such a war aim the Germancommanders-in-chief would not have agreed to. For that reason it is importantto ascertain whether this document is genuine.

In this connection, may I remind the Court that there is a third version ofthis speech as mentioned in this courtroom – namely Document L-3, which iseven worse than these and which was published by the press of the wholeworld. Wherever one spoke to anyone, this grotesque and brutal speech wasbrought up. For that reason it is in the interest of historical truth to ascertainwhether Hitler spoke in this shocking way at this time. Actually, I admit heused many expressions which were severe, but he did not use such words, andthis is of tremendous significance for the reputation of all the commanderswho were present.

Let me point out the next words. They say expressly, ‘close your heartsagainst pity, brutal measures.’ Such words were not used.” 2)

Thereupon, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, prosecution counsel, stated:

“We cannot go into intrinsic comparisons to decide the admissibility ofthe document.”

The President:

“It is a document in German, captured among German documents... Theapplication to strike out Document 1014-PS is denied.”

2) IMT, vol. XIV, p. 56. The terminology “Annihilation ...(of the enemy) main objective. Aim is theelimination of vital forces, not arrival at a certain line” corresponded word for word to Churchill’sidea of war from 1939 onwards, and was apparently so familiar to the falsifiers of the Germandocuments that they would, without a nuance of difference, impute these ideas to the Germanleadership, not taking into account that suchlike “cheap” machinations were bound to attractattention. Of course, no-one was talking about Churchill’s idea of war at Nuremberg in 1945-1946.


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Grand Admiral Raeder:

“The Führer was not accustomed to using expressions like swine (‘I amonly afraid that at the last moment some swine will offer me some plan ofarbitration’); certainly not in my recollection.” 3)

General Admiral Hermann Boehm swore an affidavit before the IMT thatneither the sentence referring to the plan of arbitration nor the one about destroyingEngland’s hegemony were ever spoken. It was a question of inventions, pure andsimple, just like the word ‘swine’.4)

Field Marshal Erich von Manstein:

“Hitler’s speech on this occasion was the subject of various prosecution‘documents’ at the Nuremberg trial [of the General Staff]…

All this is quite untrue. It is equally untrue that Hitler said anything about‘his only fear being a last-minute offer of mediation from some pig-dog orother’.” 5)

Grand Admiral Raeder described the “Boehm version” (Document Raeder27) which, also, does not constitute any minutes taken and also has no counter-signature, out of the three versions as “that one which corresponds most closelyto reality”.3)

While already origin and contents of “doc. 798-PS and 1014-PS” have beendisguised or rather falsified, in rather an amateurish way, so a comparison withthe Boehm report (doc. Raeder 27) shows, how the “accounts giving the gist”, byomitting important ideas and concepts and by adding obscure material, are nowformulated in such a way that from their distorted meaning the intention isbecoming rather too obvious: to have here, at last, a “document” that is a whoppingbig confirmation of the Allied war propaganda theses: the theses about theunprovoked “conspiracy against world peace”.

As example, two comparisons:1. Document Raeder-27 (signed Boehm):

“The view held then in spring was still to put the resolution of the Polishquestion on ice, in order to deal first with the, in his opinion, unavoidabledispute in the West. However, as a politician one must not get tied to a rigidtime sequence, but must remain elastic. The preconditions for his original

3) IMT, vol. XIV, p. 59; E. Raeder, Mein Leben, vol. II, pp. 165-167.4) IMT, vol. VII, pp. 445-447; vol. XVIII, p. 437.5) E. von Manstein, Lost Victories, p. 28.


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intentions had changed. In any case, he never believed that Poland wouldkeep to the Non-Aggression Pact in the event that Germany would be otherwiseengaged. That is already indicated by the map [meant here is the map that waswidely distributed in Poland in 1939, showing the Polish Western boundariesto be at the Elbe], but is especially noticeable from the press in the lattertimes, revealing the innermost thoughts of the Poles.” 6)

Grand Admiral Raeder reproved the words “unavoidable dispute” and stated:

“I am speaking here of an imminent dispute. An imminent dispute is notexactly something to strive for, it is rather to be feared.” 7)

Doc. 798-PS turns that into:

“I wanted to establish an acceptable relationship with Poland in order tofight first against the West. But this plan, which was agreeable to me, couldnot be executed since essential points had changed. It became clear to me thatPoland would attack us in the event of a conflict with the West.”

Admiral Boehm stressed most emphatically on 13 June 1946 in an affidavit –and his testimony is confirmed by each and every historical evidence – that a turnof phrase expressing “offensive intentions towards the Western Powers” was nomore used than was “My Polish policy hitherto was contrary to the views of thepeople” or: “Our enemies are little worms. I saw them at Munich”.8)

2. Document Raeder-27 (signed Boehm):

“The conflict will be triggered off with appropriate propaganda.”

Document 798-PS:

“I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war – no matter whetherit is plausible or not.”

a) The deposition doc. Raeder-27 (signed Boehm) is an assessment regardinga future contingency that bears in mind enemy actions, but makes no reference toany initiative on Hitler’s part.

b) Why would Hitler have made incriminating statements of such magnitudebefore men, whose passive resistance, in any case, he thought to have recognizedalready for a long time?

6) IMT, vol. XLI, Raeder-27, p. 17.7) IMT, vol. XIV, p. 80.8) Festschrift für Herbert Kraus, Mensch und Staat in Recht und Geschichte, pp. 451-452.


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c) It is a fact that Hitler’s instructions to the German press which, after all, aredocumentary material, have never been consulted as documentary evidence bythe IMT, because they clearly disprove the theories of these forged “documents”.Yet only such documentation – i.e. a definite Führer directive to the Germanpress ordering appropriate propaganda for starting a war – would have value astestimony. But since 1945, these directives to the press have remained withdrawnfrom historical research – not without reason.

All the witnesses, who testified under oath to this “address by the Führer”,disputed, in more or less strong terms, the statements that were insinuated in thesubmitted “documents”.

Field Marshal Keitel:

“When Hitler, towards the end of this speech, declared that a pact hadbeen concluded with the Soviet Union, I was firmly convinced that there wouldbe no war because I believed that these conditions constituted a basis fornegotiation and that Poland would not oppose herself to it.” 9)

Admiral Boehm:

“There never was talk of the destruction of Poland or the elimination ofthe active forces of the Polish people as such, but only ever to smash thePolish Armed Forces.” 10)

Colonel General Halder, former Chief of the German Army General Staff:

“The meeting ended with Hitler saying that Poland was isolated and thatnegotiations would be continuing…

Here [within the circle of those present] we were of the impression thatthe famous war of nerves would continue amid the favourable conditionscreated by Poland’s isolation; no decision was made.” 11)

Field Marshal von Leeb on Hitler’s alleged decision for attack:a) regarding Poland: “No, quite the reverse!”b) regarding the Western Powers:

“You mean us? We should first have attacked the West? I know nothingabout that.” 12)

9) IMT, vol. X, p. 578.10) Festschrift für Herbert Kraus, op. cit., p. 452.11) OKW-Trial, protocol p. 1863.12) ibid., p. 2415.


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Field Marshal von Küchler:

“It should be added that, as Colonel General Halder has already said, thismeeting was taking place in full public view, that most of the participantswere arriving in Salzburg by aeroplane, via Munich, that they travelled quiteopenly by car, wearing uniform, to and fro the Obersalzberg, an area which inAugust was thronging with tourists. I considered the whole thing a big bluff.”13)

Field Marshal von Manstein:

“As a result of Hitler’s address neither v. Rundstedt nor I – and presumablynone of the other generals either – concluded that war was now inevitable.Two factors in particular persuaded us that – as at Munich – there would be aneleventh-hour settlement.

The first was that the pact with the Soviet Union now rendered Poland’sposition hopeless from the start. If Britain, virtually deprived of the weaponof blockade, were compelled to take the bloody course of attacking in thewest in order to aid Poland, it seemed likely enough that, under pressure fromthe French, she would advise Warsaw to give in. Similarly it must henceforthbe clear to Poland that the British guarantee was now practically inoperative.If it came to a war with Germany, moreover, she must expect the Russians totake action in her rear with a view to accomplishing their old demands on hereastern territory. What else could Warsaw do in this situation but give way?

A further consideration:Hitherto, on the military side, the intention to attack Poland had been

camouflaged in every possible way. The presence of divisions in the easternareas had been explained by the construction of an eastern rampart; and toconceal the purpose of the troop movements to East Prussia, an enormousTannenberg celebration had been arranged. Preparations for big motorizedtroop manoeuvres had been going on until the very last moment. There hadbeen no official mobilization. Though these measures could not possibly escapethe notice of the Poles and were obviously intended as political pressure, theyhad still been enveloped in the greatest secrecy and accompanied by everyform of deception. Yet now, at the very height of the crisis, Hitler hadsummoned every one of his senior commanders to the Obersalzberg – an actionthat could not possibly be concealed. To us, this seemed to be the climax of apolicy of deliberate bluff. In other words, was Hitler not after all working fora settlement, despite his bellicose utterances? Was not this very conferencemeant to apply the final squeeze?

Such were the thoughts of Colonel-General v. Rundstedt and myself as weleft Berchtesgaden. While he travelled on ahead to our Neisse headquarters, Istopped on in Liegnitz for a further day with my family. This alone was a

13) ibid., p. 2772.


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measure of my inner disbelief in the likelihood of an imminent outbreak ofwar.” 14)

Further, it is also quite nonsensical to claim in the “documents” that Hitleris supposed to have said (doc.798-PS): “One compromise solution suggestedto us was that we should change our convictions and make kind gestures.” –Yet, in reality, all of his foreign policy had been geared to compromise. Duringthe last few days of August 1939, he was waiting for a willingness forcompromise from the others and, even at this point in time, still worked out acompromise proposal, whereas neither Great Britain nor France nor Polandhad ever submitted, suggested or even only tolerated a compromise proposalin the German-Polish question. Quite the reverse, these countries had givenup irrevocably on the policy of showing a willingness for compromise towardsHitler, shortly after the Munich conference, on the suggestion of US-PresidentRoosevelt.

Another reason making this supposed utterance nonsensical is shown by thefact that Field Marshal Göring, immediately after this conference, once againbrought in the Swedish mediator Birger Dahlerus, so as to make tentative movestowards peace with Britain, which had Hitler’s fullest and unhesitating agreement.

All of the German Generals and Admirals, who could give evidence on thismeeting, rejected unambiguously doc. 798-PS and doc. 1014-PS and approvedof, albeit with reservations, the version doc. Raeder-27 (signed Boehm).

It is indicative of today’s “historians” that they publish the “documents” withoutsignature as “authentic reproduction” of Hitler’s speech of the 22 August 1939and, what is more, without drawing attention to the fact that there is in existencestill a third version (signed Boehm), “which corresponds most closely to reality”,and without pointing out the contradictions and absurdities of the contents andwithout any reference to the statements made by those that had attended themeeting.

Even before the start of the war the Allied atrocity propaganda against Germanyhad been trying to exploit this meeting. Or is it really feasible that a journalistfrom the Allied camp, on his own initiative, would have struck just the right notewith these horror stories and to have chosen the subject with such unerringaccuracy? Who, after all, would stand to gain from utilizing the Führer’s meetingat the Obersalzberg, which had not been kept secret from foreign journalists, forwar-mongering? In any case, it is certain that the, then in Berlin residing,correspondent of the “Associated Press of America”, Louis Lochner, did on 25

14) E. von Manstein, op. cit., pp. 30-31.


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August pass on to the British embassy in Berlin the alleged contents of this secretFührer meeting. He stated, a Staff Officer of the Wehrmacht, who had received thepaper from one of the Generals present at the meeting – the sources should not bedisclosed – had handed him the composition. This very paper – could it haveoriginated, for instance, from a German resistance adherent? – found its way as“doc. 314” into the collection Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939,vol. VII – with the description from the British embassy secretary Ogilvie-Forbes:

“It is interesting and tallies in several details with information from othersources.”

Since that time, this paper is therefore a “document”. The contents of it aregrotesque: (shortened version)

“SS-death-head formations in place with the command relentlessly andwithout compassion to send into death many women and children of Polishorigin and language. Poland will be depopulated and settled with Germans.My pact with the Poles was merely conceived of as a gaining of time. As forthe rest, gentlemen, the fate of Russia will be exactly the same as I am nowgoing through with in the case of Poland. Then there will begin the dawn ofthe German rule of the earth. We shall continue to create disturbances in theFar East and in Arabia. I have but one worry, namely that some pig of a fellow(‘Saukerl’) will come at the last moment with proposals. He will fly down thestairs, even if I shall personally have to trample on his belly in the eyes of thephotographers. I shall let a few companies in Polish uniform attack in UpperSilesia or in the Protectorate. Whether the world believes it is quite indifferent(‘Scheissegal’). The world believes only in success. For you, gentlemen, fameand honour are beginning as they have not since centuries. Be hard, be withoutmercy, act more quickly and brutally than the others. The citizens of WesternEurope must tremble with horror. I experienced those poor worms Daladierand Chamberlain in Munich…

The speech was received with enthusiasm. Göring jumped on the table,thanked blood-thirstily and made bloodthirsty promises. He danced like awild man…”

This account forces one to these conclusions:1. The fairytale of the Gleiwitz radio station episode was concocted even

before any incident had occurred that could be used for this legend of the“propagandist reason for starting the war, which Hitler is said to have promisedto create” 15), to grow up around it.

15) Compare the current development [1965] of the public discussion of the “GleiwitzerSenderaffäre” [ Gleiwitz radio station incident] in Nation Europa 5/1961;5/1963.


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2. The Allied war propaganda had started in peacetime already.3. The origin of the “first person”-format, as applied in the later forged account

about this meeting has, in all probability, been taken from this fabrication ofatrocities from that time.

4. The IMT prosecution no longer paid any attention to this particular paper,because it apparently appeared too silly, even for them. Yet, this did not stopthem from assessing the somewhat toned down papers, which were presented as“originating from the captured German archives”, as evidence, although it wasplainly obvious that, as regards contents, the later falsifications had been takenfrom the earlier forgery. One did have, after all, several “documents” – and themany “agreements” were bound to convey the “true core” of Hitler’s address!Who would ever dare to voice the suspicion of the “Supreme Tribunal” makinguse of three or, that is to say, four or just forged “documents” in general? Suchbrazen-faced arrogance could not possibly be the actions from the judges of the“civilized and peace-loving nations”!?

Hitler’s Address to the Commanders-in-Chief of the Wehrmachton 23 November 1939

This “document”, also, has the same typical flaws in format and contents thatcharacterize the other “key documents” of the IMT prosecution: no date, noheading, no signature, so that here too, prerequisites for establishing a body ofevidence elude the historian, and so there is actually nothing more to be said onthe matter. But here, as well, is an outpouring of transparently flimsy hypothesesof Allied war propaganda:

“The Sudetenland was from the start only a strategic and, what is more, onlya partial solution.”

“Conquest of the remaining Czech territory only starting point for a conquestof Poland.”

“Building up the Wehrmacht always done with aggressive intentions in mind.”“The first and foremost fundamental decision to strike against the East and

West.”“Pacts, however, are only held as long as they serve their purpose.”“I shall shrink from nothing.”“I want to annihilate the enemy.” etc.


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None of these postulates is tenable, historically speaking. Out of all the capturedGerman documents, just these obviously falsified papers are the only onescontaining statements of that kind. All the genuine documents that were foundand were withdrawn immediately from historical research, but were publishedyears later in the Akten der deutschen auswärtigen Politik (ADAP), refute thesestatements.

Even the Bundeszentrale für Heimatdienst (Federal Central Office for RegionalServices) acknowledges in a book that “the text that we have” of this address is“uncertain”, yet nevertheless has been published as “document” 798-PS in volumeXXVI, pages 327-336, in the official text of the Trial of the Major War Criminals.As the only one to turn State’s (Queen’s) evidence, the Chief of the General Staffof the German Army, Franz Halder, is quoted here, who, at any rate, does notagree with all the imputed statements and, otherwise, only calls upon his memory.1)

Halder was known to have been active in the resistance against Hitler and hadbeen one of the initiators who wanted to arrest the Führer and Chancellor of theReich already in the year 1938.

“Of the four documents which we have examined we had to reject, from adubious source analysis point of view, three of them and had to register doubtsabout the fourth…

From an historical point of view the result is distressing, because whatthis example reveals is the fact that nothing of the historical findings of theInternational (Allied) Military Tribunal can be accepted without a further re-examination…

Regrettably, not all historians have realized this. The result of this is theendeavour to write history according to the Nuremberg methods. This practicewith its consequences will need to be thrown out along with the historicalpanorama of Nuremberg.” 2)

1) E. Korsthorst, Die deutsche Opposition gegen Hitler zwischen Polen- und Frankreichfeldzug,p. 109.

2) Festschrift für Herbert Kraus, Mensch und Staat in Recht und Geschichte, p. 454.


471

The Czecho-Slovak Memorandaat the Paris Peace Conference 1919-19201)

Memorandum No. 2The Territorial Claims of the Czecho-Slovak Republic

…These problems, which contain all the Czecho-Slovak basic issues, can bedivided up in this way:

1. The question of the three principal provinces of the ancient crown ofBohemia (Böhmen) that had always been Czech: Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia.

2. The rectification of the borders of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia at theexpense of Germany and Austria.

3. The question of Slovakia, wrested by force from the Czechs several centuriesago, which had been separated artificially from Bohemia and is now reclaimedby the new Czecho-Slovak Republic in conformity with the nations’ right of self-determination.

4. The problem of the Ruthenians of Hungary: In view of the particulargeographical stratification of this question, we consider that the best solutionwould be to attach them to the Czecho-Slovak Republic.

5. The problem of the Czecho-Slovaks becoming connected with the Yugoslavsand the necessity to claim for the Czecho-Slovak Republic and the State ofYugoslavia certain areas, where the majority of the population is German andMagyar.

6. To make international the following transport routes:a) Elbeb) Danubec) Vistulad) The railways Bratislava (Pressburg) – Triest and the railways Bratislava

(Pressburg) – Fiume,e) The railways Prague – Furth – Nuremberg – Strasbourg.7. a) The problem of the Czech population in Vienna, constituting almost a

1) Representation here in part only. These memoranda, just like the Polish memoranda which havebeen treated to some extent in this book, characterize aptly the mentality of the Czech leadership stillprevalent in the year 1938.


472

quarter of the number of inhabitants of the former Austrian capital, and whocannot be left unprotected in the hands of the Germans.

b) The question of the Wends of Lausitz, who are threatened with extermin-ation by the Germans and whose lot imposes upon the Czecho-Slovaks, as theirnext of kin, the sacred duty to see to it that…

II. Rectification of the boundaries of Bohemia, Moravia and SilesiaIf we put forward, as the basis of our territorial claims, the historical boundaries

of our three provinces of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, this does not, then, ruleout the possibility of annexing to this territory those neighbouring regions wherea Czecho-Slovak population is living.

Such is in fact the case in four regions, of which two are in Prussian Silesiaand two in Lower Austria.

In Prussian Silesia it is, first of all, a matter of a small area on the north-eastern border of Bohemia, in the vicinity of Glatz. In former times this area wasentirely Czech. At present, a large part of it is Germanized. But these regionscould still be saved. We demand their annexation to Bohemia…

VII. The Wends of Lausitz and the Czecho-Slovaks in ViennaThe Wends of Lausitz belong to a Slavic race which, by culture and language,

is the closest to the Czech. They are the last remnants of the Elbe Slavs, that hadbecome Germanized during the course of history. Over a long period of time theyhad been joined to the Czech State and had become an integrated part of thesame. Today they are 160,000 in number and are in great danger of beingcompletely Germanized within a very short time. Their spiritual ties with theCzechs are very close and it is a sacred duty for the Czecho-Slovaks, whom thepeople of Lausitz have always considered their natural protectors, to defend todaybefore the Peace Conference the case of this unhappy nation, abandoned by allthe world.

The territories inhabited by the Lausitz Wends are situated at the boundariesof Bohemia, Saxony and Prussian Silesia and include certain areas of the followingdistricts: Lower Lausitz: Guben, Lübben, Luckau, Kalau, Kottbus, Sorau andSpremberg; Upper Lausitz: Lauban, Görlitz, Bautzen, Kamenz, Löbau and Zittau.

To demand their annexation to the Czecho-Slovak Republic could mean raisinga problem, which is difficult to solve. Nevertheless, it is our unquestionable dutyto protect them. Therefore, we must prepare at least a minimal programme.

Memorandum No. 3The Problem of the Germans in Bohemia

...V. Political reasons: the Germans of Bohemia are only colonistsIt must also be taken into consideration that the Germans in Bohemia are only

colonists or descendants of colonists. For many centuries the various ruling houseshad German colonists come to Bohemia in order to increase the revenue of theroyal treasury…


473

VI. The fate of the Germans in the Czecho-Slovak RepublicIt is absolutely essential to know exactly how the Germans are treated in the

Czecho-Slovak State. Not only is the Czecho-Slovak Republic prepared, if needbe, to accept every international legal regulation established by the PeaceConference in favour of the minorities, but they are also prepared to go beyondsuch regulation, and to accord to the Germans all rights which are due to them.

The Czecho-Slovak Republic will be the very incarnation of a democraticstate; all elections will proceed according to universal suffrage, directly andequally; all positions will be accessible to all citizens; minority languages will beadmitted everywhere without exception; the right to have their own schools, theirown judges and their own courts, will never be denied to whatever minority.

The Germans in Bohemia would have equal rights with the Czecho-Slovaks.German would be the second national language and no repressive measures wouldever be employed against the German part of the population. The regime wouldresemble that of Switzerland.

During the nineteenth century, they [the Czechs] kept much practical sense,but, above all, much political sense. Being far too much the “realists” and havingfar too much common sense, they have not failed to realize that acts of violenceand injustice have been the reasons for the decline of Austria-Hungary, and that asimilar policy would only be damaging for their own state and their nation.

Memorandum No. 8 Czech Upper Silesia

… III. Economic ReasonsThe Czecho-Slovak Republic lays claim to Upper Silesia above all for

economic reasons. As an industrial state they need coal, in which Upper Silesia isvery rich...

Memorandum No. 9The Problem of the Glatz Region

The Czecho-Slovak and the Polish State cannot develop in full security aslong as there exists between them a German enclave, which could obstruct directcommunication between the cities of Prague and Warsaw, and which would furnishgreat strategic advantages to Prussia in case of attack against either of the twostates. The Czecho-Slovak and the Polish State attach the greatest importance toensuring that Prussia will not extend her territory south of the Neisse at Glatz andwest of the Eulen mountains.

It would therefore be in the interest of the Czecho-Slovak and Polish State tosolve such a crucial problem as that of the Glatz region. The majority of thisterritory is indisputably German. The Czecho-Slovaks demand a part of it.


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Memorandum No. 10Problems of the Rectification of the Czecho-Slovak and

German-Austrian Frontiers

... III. Rectification of the frontiers with Prussian SilesiaWe place particular importance in rectifying the frontier in the Riesen mountain

range. The present border is indeed plainly disadvantageous to the Czecho-SlovakRepublic. It runs over the peaks of the mountain range in such a way that thehighest parts are in the possession of the Prussians, so that above all from astrategical consideration, it would give to our enemies the possibility to exploitthis against the Czecho-Slovak Republic.

V. Rectification of the frontier with BavariaThese rectifications are quite minor. They concern two spots and are requested

for two reasons: the first one is the economic reason, on the strength of which wedemand the town Furth-im-Walde, which has a considerable Czech minority, andwhich is also a railway junction of international significance.

The second rectification is requested for the same reasons as have beenexplained, when discussing the Riesen mountain range.

We demand that the Czech-Bavarian border be moved further into themountains so as to avoid having the Germans on the eastern mountain heightsand on the slopes of the Bohemian Forest, and in order to be safe from any possibleattack.

The Czecho-Slovak Republic and their right to compensationfrom war damages

Final result:1. Apart from their struggle for freedom, the Czecho-Slovaks have tried to

support effectively the Allies in their terrible battle against Germany.a) They had deployed three armies, in France, in Italy and in Russia, that have

played an effective part in the fighting and have aroused general admiration.b) They have, first and foremost, kept Siberia as a sphere of influence for the

Allies, thus having achieved a basis for the re-establishment of Russia.c) They have made the blockade of Germany possible by protecting these

territories.2. Today, the whole world recognizes these contributions and realizes the result

of our actions. The leaders of the Allied nations have acknowledged these serviceson several occasions.

3. On the day of final settlement dealing with all the contributions made duringthe war, we appeal to these words in support of our claim.

VI. …While the Poles had been exposed to invasion and devastation, which is an

advantage for them regarding the right to have reparation, so we, for our part,


475

Source: H. Raschhofer, Beiträge zum ausländischen öffentlichen Recht und Völkerrecht

(Contributions to Public Law Abroad and International Law), Berlin 1937, pp. 35, 37, 43, 79, 95,

101, 263, 267, 287, 293, 319, 325, 327, 331.

have also suffered occupation, invasion and impoverishment; yet we, on the otherhand, have proffered active collaboration to the Allies.

Furthermore, I want to state that all the inhabitants of Austria-Hungary (withthe exception of our German and Magyar enemies), i.e. the Yugoslavs, theRumanians, the Italians and the Poles, would be in a comparatively better positionthan we, were our rights not recognized. Rumania will be indemnified, Serbiawill be indemnified; likewise Italy and Poland are going to be indemnified, dueto the fact that not only had certain parts of the old Austria-Hungary been invaded,but also their own territory.

If satisfaction were denied us, then it would be a case of all the other nationsof Austria-Hungary being treated proportionally better than we are being treated– and we had tried to do everything possible within our power. We would be puton a par with the Germans and the Magyars.

VII. ... We are, undeniably, a factor that has to confront the German threat(which continues to exist) in Central Europe, and that must also stand in the wayof the push to the East, rather more in relation to the economical than the militarysphere…

What alternative would we have, in view of our geographical configurationand our central position, if we are denied the prospect of becoming economicallyviable? It would not be worth the trouble to resurrect this nation if, straight away,one were to kill her by imposing on her financial and economical burdens of thatkind. This would be a service rendered to our enemies, instead of being of help tous and the Allies.

France and England, above all, should understand this situation, having adirect interest in all the happenings in Central Europe. But the same applies to allour neighbours: it is in the interest of Italy, Yugoslavia, Rumania and Poland thatwe should not be a toy in the hands of the great German conquerors.

If Bohemia is not put on a strong enough footing, viewed from an economicaland financial aspect, then the fight against Germany will not have achieved itspurpose. Instead of reviving a nation, this nation would have been stillborn, andit would have been better not to have lent any assistance at her rebirth...

VI. The Czecho-Slovak State that will have to confront an intense competitiveeconomy and the German pressure in Central Europe, is going to face totalbankruptcy if they are not awarded the right to be given reparations.


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Statesmen and Diplomats in 1939

GERMANY

Hitler, AdolfRibbentrop, Joachim vonGöring, Hermann

Weizsäcker, Ernst von

— Führer and Chancellor of the Reich— Reich Foreign Minister 1938-1945— Field Marshall, Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, highest ranking Officer of the German Wehrmacht— State Secretary of the Foreign Ministry

Dirksen, Herbert vonWelczek, Johannes Count vonSchulenburg, Friedrich Werner Count von derMackensen, Hans G. vonDieckhoff, HansMoltke, Hans A. vonOtt, Eugen

Ambassador in LondonParisMoscowRomeWashingtonWarsawTokyo

Chargé d’Affaires inMoscowWashington

Hilger, GustavThomsen, Hans

DANZIG

Forster, AlbertGreiser, ArthurBurckhardt, Carl J.Chodacki, MarianSheppard, Francis M.

— Gauleiter of the NSDAP (Head of State)— President of the Senate— High Commissioner of the League of Nations— Polish Commissioner General— British Consul General

ITALY

Mussolini, Benito

Ciano, Galeazzo Count

— Head of Government, Prime Minister, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces— Foreign Minister (1936-1943)


477

Ambassador in BerlinParisLondonMoscowWashingtonWarsaw

Attolico, BernardoGuariglia, RaffaeleGrandi, Dino CountRosso, AugustoColonna, Ascanio PrinceValentino, Pietro Arone Baron

GREAT BRITAIN

Chamberlain, Sir NevilleHalifax, Edward W. ViscountCadogan, Sir Alexander

Vansittart, Sir Robert

— Prime Minister— Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs— Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign

Office— Chief Diplomatic Advisor to the Foreign Secretary

Ambassador in ParisWashingtonMoscowBerlinWarsawRome

Phipps, Sir EricLothian, LordSeeds, Sir WilliamHenderson, NevileKennard, Sir Howard W.Loraine, Sir Percy L.Perth, Sir Eric, Earl of (1935-1939)

POLAND

Beck, JozefMosciki, IgnazSkladkowski, FelicianSmigly-Rydz, Edward

Szembek, Jan CountArciszewski, Miroslaw

— Minister for Foreign Affairs— President of Poland— Premier Minister— Marshal of Poland, Inspector-General of Armed Forces— Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs— Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

Ambassador in BerlinLondonParisMoscowWashington

Lipski, JosefRaczynski, Edward CountLukasiewicz, JuliuszGrzybowski, Waclaw CountPotocki, Jerzy Count

Chargé d’Affaires inWarsaw Norton, Clifford J.


478

FRANCE

Daladier, ÉdouardBonnet, GeorgesGamelin, Maurice

— President of the Council of Ministers— Foreign Minister— Chief of the Army General Staff

Ambassador in LondonBerlinMoscowWarsawRomeWashington

Corbin, CharlesCoulondre, RobertNaggiar, Paul-ÉmileNoël, LéonFrançois-Poncet, AndréDoynel de Saint-Quentin, René

SOVIET UNION

Stalin, JosefMolotov, Vyacheslav M.Voroshilov, Klement J.

— General Secretary of the Communist Party— People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs— People’s Commissar for War

Ambassador in LondonParisBerlin

WarsawWashingtonRome

Maisky, Ivan M.Suritz, I. Z.Merkalov, Alexei (to April 1939)Schwarzer, Alexander (from 2 September 1939)Sharonov, NikolaiUmanski, KonstantinChargé d’Affaires Helfand, L.

Chargé d’Affaires inBerlin Astakhov, Georgi

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Roosevelt, Franklin DelanoHull, CordellWelles, Sumner

— President— Secretary of State (Minister for Foreign Affairs)— Under-Secretary of State

Ambassador in LondonParisMoscowWarsawBerlinRome

Chargé d’Affaires inBerlin Kirk, Alexander C.

Kennedy, JosephBullit, WilliamDavies, Joseph E.Biddel, Drexel A. J.Wilson, Hugh (recalled in November 1938)Philipps, William


479

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Hesse, Fritz, Das Spiel um Deutschland, Munich 1953

Heuss, Theodor, Hitlers Weg, Berlin, Leipzig, Stuttgart 1932

Hierl, Konstantin, Im Dienst für Deutschland 1918-1945, Heidelberg 1954–– Schuld oder Schicksal? Heidelberg 1957

Hilger, Gustav, Wir und der Kreml, Frankfurt, Berlin 1956

Hilger, Gustav and Meyer, Alfred G., The Incompatible Allies, New York 1953

Hitler, Adolf, Mein Kampf, Munich 1930–– Der Großdeutsche Freiheitskampf, Reden von Adolf Hitler, (speeches, published byPhilipp Bouhler), Munich 1940

Hofer, Walther, Die Entfesselung des Zweiten Weltkrieges, Stuttgart 1953–– Der Nationalsozialismus – Dokumente 1933-1945, Frankfurt/M 1957

Hoggan, David L., The Forced War, Costa Mesa, California 1989–– Der erzwungene Krieg (German edition), Tübingen 1961

Holldack, Heinz, Was wirklich geschah, Munich 1949

Höltje, Christian, Die Weimarer Republik und das Ostlocarno Problem 1919-1934,Würzburg 1958

Horak, Stephan, Poland and her National Minorities 1919-1939, New York, Washington1961


485

Hossbach, Friedrich, Von der militärischen Verantwortlichkeit in der Zeit vor dem ZweitenWeltkrieg, Göttingen 1948–– Zwischen Wehrmacht und Hitler, Wolfenbüttel 1949

Hughes, Emrys, Winston Churchill – British Bulldog – His Career in War and Peace,New York 1955

Hull, Cordell, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, New York 1948

“IMT”– Der Prozeß gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem InternationalenMilitärgerichtshof in Nürnberg vom 14. November 1945 bis 1. Oktober 1946, vol. I-XLII,Nuremberg 1948

Jacobsen, H.A., 1939-1945, Der Zweite Weltkrieg in Chronik und Dokumenten, fifth edition,Darmstadt 1961

Jacobsen, Huber, Müller, Besson (authors), Das Dritte Reich, Munich, Vienna, Basle1964

Jahn, Hans-Edgar, Pommersche Passion, Preetz 1964

Jaksch, Wenzel, Europas Weg nach Potsdam, Stuttgart 1958–– Europe’s Road to Potsdam, New York 1963

Jedrzejewicz, W., Poland in the British Parliament, London 1946

Jong, Louis de, The German Fifth Column in the Second World War, London 1953

Jung, Rudolf, Die Tschechen – Tausend Jahre deutsch-tschechischer Kampf, Berlin 1937

Kass, Georg, England und Deutschland von 1900-1958, Berlin no date

Kaufmann, Th. Nathan, Germany must perish, New York 1941

Keynes, J.M., A Revision of the Treaty, New York 1922

Kirkpatrick, Sir Ivone A., The Inner Circle, Memoirs, London 1959

Klein, Burton, Germany’s Economic Preparations for War, Cambridge/Mass. 1959

Kleist, Peter, Auch Du warst dabei, Heidelberg 1952

Koch, Hans, Der deutsche Osten – Referate des ersten Ost-Seminars der Hochschule fürpolitische Wissenschaften, Munich 1956

Kordt, Erich, Nicht aus den Akten, Stuttgart 1950

Korsthorst, Erich, Die deutsche Opposition gegen Hitler zwischen Polen- und Frank-reichfeldzug, No. 8, Bonn, Schriftenreihe der Bundeszentrale für Heimatdienst, 1957

Krupp-Prozeß Verteidigungsdokumentenbuch 2a Nr. 133, 2b Nr. 104 (Krupp-Trial:Documents for the Defence)

Laeuen, Harald, Polnische Tragödie, Stuttgart 1958

Laternser, Hans, Verteidigung deutscher Soldaten – Plädoyers vor Alliierten Gerichten,Bonn 1950


486

Lectures Françaises, Les Origines Secrètes de la Guerre 1939-45, authors: R. d’Argile, J.Ploncard d’Assac, J. Béarn, H. Coston, P. Cousteau, H. Lebre, M. de Mauny, Paris 1957

Lenin, V.I., Ausgewählte Werke, vol.I-II, East Berlin 1955–– Ausgewählte Werke, vol. I-XII Volumes, Vienna 1932 onwards–– “Works” (Russian), vol. I-XXXVII, Moscow 1941-1957

Lenz, Friedrich, Nie wieder München, 2 volumes, Heidelberg 1965

Liddel-Hart, B. H., Die wahren Ursachen des Krieges, Zürich 1946–– Warum lernen wir denn nichts aus der Geschichte? Zürich 1946–– Why Don’t We Learn from History? London 1944–– The Other Side of the Hill, London 1948

Lochner, Louis P., Die Mächtigen und der Tyrann, Darmstadt 1955–– Tycoons and Tyrant; German Industry from Hitler to Adenauer, Chicago 1954

Löwenstein, Hubertus Prince zu, Deutsche Geschichte, Frankfurt/M 1950

Ludwig, Emil, Roosevelt, Studie über Glück und Macht, Amsterdam 1938

Ludwig, Gerhard, Massenmord im Weltgeschehen, Stuttgart 1951

Lutz, Hermann, Verbrechervolk im Herzen Europas? Tübingen 1959

Mackiewicz, Josef, Katyn – ungesühntes Verbrechen,Zürich 1949

Maisky, Ivan M., Who helped Hitler? London 1964

Manstein, Erich, Verlorene Siege, Bonn 1955–– Lost Victories, Novato, California 1982 (sixth printing 1986)

Markert, Werner, Osteuropa-Handbuch Polen, Cologne, Graz 1959

Martel René, Deutschlands blutende Grenzen, Oldenburg 1930

Mau, H. and Krausnick, H., Deutsche Geschichte der jüngsten Vergangenheit, 1933-1945,Stuttgart 1956

Meinck, G., Hitler und die deutsche Aufrüstung 1933-1937, Wiesbaden 1959

Meissner, Boris, Die Sowjetunion, die Baltischen Staaten und das Völkerrecht, Cologne1956

Meissner, Otto, Staatssekretär unter Ebert, Hindenburg, Hitler, Hamburg 1950

Michaelis, Herbert, Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte, vol. IV: Der Zweite Weltkrieg1939-1945, Constance 1965

Millis, W., The Forrestal Diaries, New York 1951

Miksche, F.O., Unconditional Surrender, London 1952–– Donauföderation, Salzburg 1953

Moltmann, Günter, Amerikas Deutschlandpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg – Kriegs- undFriedensziele 1941-1945, Heidelberg 1958

Moravec, Emanuel, Das Ende der Benesch-Republik, Prague 1942


487

Müller-Hillebrand, B., Das Heer 1933-1945, vol. II, Darmstadt 1954

Namier, L.B., Diplomatic Prelude 1938-1939, London 1948–– In the Nazi Era, London 1952

Nedoresov, A.I., “The National Liberation Movement in Czecho-Slovakia” (Russian),Moscow 1961

Nekritsch, A.M., “The Policy of English Imperialism in Europe” (Russian), Moscow 1955

Nicoll, P.H., Britain’s Blunder (English edition), London 1949–– Englands Krieg gegen Deutschland (German edition), Tübingen 1963 and 1999

Nitti, Francesco, La Tragedia dell’Europa – che farà America? Turin 1924

Novikova, G. et al, Recent History – The Countries of Western Europe and America 1918-1939, Moscow 1959

“OKW-Trial” – Protokolle und Dokumente des Falles XII vor dem amerikanischenMilitärgerichtshof in Nürnberg, Göttingen no date

Ostwärts von Oder und Neiße, editors: Seraphim Maurach, Wolfrum, Hannover 1949

Paget, Reginald T., Manstein – His Campaigns and His Trial, London 1951

Papen, Franz von, Der Wahrheit eine Gasse, Munich 1953

Penrith, Esme W. Howard Baron, Theatre of Life, vol. II, London 1936

Platanova, Pavlenko, Parotkina, “The Second World War” (Russian), Moscow 1958

Ploetz, Karl, Auszug aus der Geschichte (1939), vol. II, 28th printing, Berlin, Leipzig1939,–– Auszug aus der Geschichte, Bielefeld 1951

Pospieszalski, Karol M., Sprawa 58,000 Volksdeutschow, Posen 1959

Potyomkin, V.P., “History of Diplomacy”(Russian), vol. III, Moscow 1947

Pozorny, Reinhard, Wir suchten die Freiheit, Munich 1959

Projektor, D.M., “The War in Europe 1939-1941” (Russian), Moscow 1963

Rabl, Kurt, Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Völker, Munich 1963

Raczynski, Edward Count, In Allied London – The wartime diaries of the PolishAmbassador, London 1962

Raeder, Erich, Mein Leben – von 1935 bis Spandau 1955, vol. II, Tübingen 1957

Raschhofer, Hermann, Die tschechoslowakischen Denkschriften für die Friedenskonferenzvon Paris 1919-1920 in: Beiträge zum ausländischen öffentlichen Recht und Völkerrecht,No. 24, Berlin 1937

Recke, Walter, Die polnische Frage als Problem der europäischen Politik, Berlin 1927

Reece, Carroll, Das Recht auf Deutschlands Osten, Leer 1957


488

Reichenberger, E.J., Fahrt durch besiegtes Land, Karlsruhe 1950–– Der erschreckendste Friede der Geschichte, Salzburg 1947–– Wider Willkür und Machtrausch, Göttingen 1955

Rein, Adolf, Warum führt England Krieg? Deutsches Institut für aussenpolitischeForschung, No. 16, Berlin 1940

Rhode, Gotthold, Die Ostgebiete des Deutschen Reiches, Würzburg 1956

Ribbentrop, Annelies von, Verschwörung gegen den Frieden, Leoni 1962

Ribbentrop, Joachim von, Zwischen London und Moskau – Erinnerungen und letzteAufzeichnungen, Leoni 1953

Richthofen, Bolko Baron von, Deutschland und Polen, Hanover 1959

Robinson, Edgar Eugene, The Roosevelt Leadership 1933-1945, New York 1955

Rönnefarth, Helmut K.G., Konferenzen und Verträge: Vertrags-Ploetz, Würzburg 1959

Roos, Hans, Polen und Europa – Studien zur polnischen Außenpolitik 1931-1939, Tübingen1957

Roosevelt, F.D., Nothing to fear. The selected addresses (1932-1945) of Franklin DelanoRoosevelt (editor B.D. Zevin), publisher: Houghton Mifflin, Cambridge/Mass. 1946–– Amerika und Deutschland 1936-1945 – Auszüge aus Reden und Dokumenten, U.S.Government printing office 1946: also see Documents on American Foreign Relations

Rosenmann, Samuel J., Working with Roosevelt, London 1952–– The public papers and addresses of F.D. Roosevelt, vol. 1944-1945, New York 1950

Roth, Paul, Die Entstehung des polnischen Staates, Berlin 1926

Rothermere, Viscount, Warnings and Predictions, London 1939

Rozek, Edward J., Allied Wartime Diplomacy – A Pattern in Poland, New York 1958

Rück, Fritz, 1919-1939, Friede ohne Sicherheit, Stockholm 1945

Rühle, Gerd, Das Dritte Reich, vol. I-VII, Berlin 1933-1938

Sanborn, F.R., Design for War, New York 1951

Schellenberg, Walter, Memoiren, Cologne 1956

Schmidt, Paul, Statist auf diplomatischer Bühne, Bonn 1949

Schmidt-Prozeß, Der Hochverratsprozeß gegen Dr Guido Schmidt vor dem WienerVolksgerichtshof, StaatsdruckereiVienna 1947

Schmidt-Hannover, Otto, Umdenken oder Anarchie, Göttingen 1959

Schumacher, Bruno, Geschichte Ost- und Westpreußens, Würzburg 1958

Schuschnigg, Kurt von, Ein Requiem in Rot-Weiß-Rot, Zurich 1946

Schwarzschild, Leopold, Von Krieg zu Krieg, Amsterdam 1947


489

Seidl, Alfred, Die Beziehungen zwischen Deutschland und der Sowjetunion 1939-1941 –Dokumente des Auswärtigen Amtes, Tübingen 1949

Sekistow, W.A., “The Strange War in Western Europe and the Mediterranean 1939-1943”,(Russian), Moscow 1958

Semiriaga, M.I., “The Second World War and Proletarian Internationalism”, (Russian),Moscow 1962

Seraphim, Hans-Günter, Die deutsch-russischen Beziehungen 1939-1941, Hamburg 1949

Seraphim, Maurach and Wolfrum (editors), Ostwärts von Oder und Neisse, Hanover 1949

Sering, Max, Germany under the Dawes Plan, London 1929

Seton-Watson, Hugh, Eastern Europe between the Wars 1918-1941, Cambridge 1946

Sharp, Samuel L., Poland – White Eagle on a Red Field, Cambridge/Mass. 1953

Sherwood, Robert, Roosevelt and Hopkins – an Intimate History, New York 1948

Siebert, Ferdinand, Von Frankfurt bis Bonn – Die deutschen Verfassungen 1849-1949,Frankfurt/M., Bonn 1958

Snow, C.P., Science and Government, London 1961

Spetzler, Eberhard, Luftkrieg und Menschlichkeit, Göttingen 1956

Springer, Hildegard, Es sprach Hans Fritzsche, Stuttgart 1949–– Das Schwert auf der Waage, Heidelberg 1953

Staatslexikon, vol. IV, publisher: Herder-Verlag, Freiburg 1931

Stalin, Josef, “Works” (Russian) vol. I-XIII, Moscow 1946 onwards–– Fragen des Leninismus, East Berlin 1955–– “The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” in “New Times” No. 44, 29

October 1952, Supplement, Moscow 1952

Statistisches Bundesamt, Die deutschen Vertreibungsverluste, Wiesbaden, Stuttgart 1958

Sündermann, Helmut, Alter Feind – was nun? Leoni 1955–– Das Dritte Reich – Eine Richtigstellung in Umrissen, extend. edit., Leoni 1964–– Die Pioniere und die Ahnungslosen, Leoni 1960–– Potsdam 1945 – ein kritischer Bericht, Leoni 1962

Swart, Friedrich, Diesseits und jenseits der Grenze, Leer 1954

Szembek, J. Count, Journal 1933-1939, Paris 1952

Tansill, Charles, Back Door to War – The Roosevelt Foreign Policy 1933-1941, Chicago1952

Taylor, A.J.P., The Origins of the Second World War, London 1961

Taylor, Telford, Sword and Swastika, New York 1952


490

Telpuchovski. B.S., Die sowjetische Geschichte des Großen Vaterländischen Krieges 1941-1945, published by order of ‘Arbeitskreis für Wehrforschung’, critical commentary by A.Hillgruber and H. A. Jacobsen, Frankfurt 1961

Templewood, Viscount (Sir Samuel Hoare), Nine Troubled Years, London 1954

Toynbee, A.J., editor, Survey of International Affairs 1939-1946, vol. I-X , London 1951-1958

Truchanovsky, W.G., “England’s Foreign Policy in the First Stage of the General Crisis ofCapitalism (1918-1939)”, (Russian), Moscow 1962

Tuerck, C.H., Das Urteil im Wilhelmstraßenprozeß – Der amtliche Wortlaut derEntscheidung im Fall Nr. 11 des Nürnberger Militärtribunals gegen von Weizsäcker undandere, Schwäbisch Gmünd: Burger, 1950

Türcke, K.E. Baron von, “Das Schulrecht der deutschen Volksgruppen in Ost- und Südost-Europa” in: Beiträge zum ausländischen öffentlichen Recht und Völkerrecht, No. 25,Berlin 1938

Unser Europa – Kulturausschuß der Beratenden Versammlung des Europarates, Paris1958

Utley, Freda, The High Cost of Vengeance, Chicago 1949

Vansittart, Robert Gilbert, Black Record, London 1941–– Even Now, London 1949–– The Mist Procession, London 1958

Veale, F.J.P., Advance to Barbarism, Appleton, Wisconsin 1953–– Crimes Discreetly Veiled, London 1958

Vertrags-Ploetz, Konferenzen und Verträge, Würzburg 1959

Viefhaus, Erwin, Die Minderheitenfrage und die Entstehung der Minderheitenschutz-verträge auf der Pariser Friedenskonferenz 1919, Würzburg 1960

Voices of History 1944-1945, Speeches and Papers of Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Chiang,Hitler and other Leaders, New York 1945

Vorobiev and Kravzov, “The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945”(Russian), Moscow 1961

Wagner, Oskar, Der slawische Vorstoß nach dem deutschen Osten, Ulm 1956

Wagner, Wolfgang, Die Oder-Neisse-Linie, Stuttgart 1959

Warlimont, W., Im Hauptquartier der deutschen Wehrmacht 1939-1945, Frankfurt/M.,1962

Wedemeyer, Albert C., Wedemeyer Reports! New York 1958

Weizsäcker, E. Baron von, Erinnerungen, Munich, Leipzig, Freiburg 1950

Winzer, Otto, “Twelve Years of Struggle against Fascism and War”, (Russian), Moscow1956


491

Wippermann, K., Deutscher Geschichtskalender, Berlin 1933

Zawodny, J.K. Death in the Forest: The Story of the Katyn Forest Massacre, NY 1962

Zentner, K., Illustrierte Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges, Munich 1963

Ziegler, Wilhelm, Versailles, Hamburg 1933–– Wie kam es zum Kriege 1939? Leipzig 1939

Periodicals and Newspapers (single copies)

Christian Century, Chicago, April 1941Congressional Record, Washington, 25 June 1939Contemporary Review, London, June 1955Daily Express, London, 24 March 1933; 17 September 1936Das Neue Reich, 28 March and 11 April 1959Das Ostpreußenblatt, 1 December 1962Der Ring, Düsseldorf, April 1959Der Spiegel, No. 47/1962 and 3 February 1965, and 10 February 1965Deutsche Arbeit, Prague 1939/1940, p. 326: “Monatsschrift für das geistige Leben derDeutschen in Böhmen”Deutsche Hochschullehrerzeitung 4/1961Die Tat, Zurich, 26 November 1952Die Welt, 27 September and 12 November 1958Frankfurter Allgemeine, 11 March 1959; 15 March 1965; 31 August 1979HANSARD’S Parliamentary Debates, London: “Commons, 31 January 1939”Informationen aus Politik, Wirtschaft und Kultur (PWK), Düsseldorf, 8 December 1961“International Life” (Russian), Moscow 3/1959Isvestia, Moscow, 22 January 1934Kölner Stadtanzeiger, 17 July 1959Kommunist 2/1957; 5/1958; 4/1959; 12/1960Monatshefte für Auswärtige Politik, Berlin VI/1939NATION EUROPA, Coburg, P.O. Box 670, political monthly journalNationale Rundschau, 27 March 1957“New Times” (Russian), Moscow 1952, 1962Politische Informationen, Bad Godesberg, 5 March 1963Posener Stimmen, Lüneburg, March 1964: “Heimatblatt des Hilfskomitees der Gliederder Posener Evangelischen Kirche”Pravo Lidu, Prague marxist newspaper, 18 September 1939Tägliche Rundschau, 11 May 1919West-Östliche Begegnung, 6/August-September 1959


492

Index of names

Abetz, Otto 201Adam, Wilhelm 240Alderman, Sydney 125Arciszewski, Miroslaw 204Attolico, Bernardo 390, 423-424Avenol, Joseph 192, 354

Baginski, H. 147Baldwin, Sir Stanley 239, 241, 247Balfour, Arthur James 145Baruch, Bernard 292, 353, 361Bauer, Gustav 439Beaverbrook, Lord William M. Aitken, 45, 345Beck, Jozef 85, 120, 149, 153, 164, 170-172, 176, 178-180, 182, 184-193, 196, 201-203,205-206, 208-210, 214-217, 220-223, 225-226, 229, 280, 290, 299, 302, 304-306, 310-312, 320, 330-331, 333, 337-339, 395-400, 408-411, 413-414, 416, 419, 423, 427-429Beck, Ludwig 246, 452Benes, Eduard 36, 63, 83-84, 86, 90- 97, 99, 101, 103-106, 108, 111, 115, 120, 123, 125,128-129, 345, 362, 447Bevan, Aneurin 67Biddle, A. J. Drexel 209, 338, 354, 410Blomberg, Werner von 452-454Blum, Léon 93Bochenski, Adolf 176Bodenschatz, Karl 385Böhm, Hermann 460, 463-465, 467Bohle, Ernst Wilhelm 163Boleslaw the Brave 152Boleslaw III Wrymouth 152Bonnet, Georges 113,182, 191-192, 221, 232, 235, 258, 291, 301, 360, 386Boothe-Luce, Clare 370Bracken, Lord Brendan 336Brauchitsch, Walter von 452, 456, 459Braun, Otto 138Brody, Andras 117Brüning, Heinrich 176-177Buckmaster, Lord Stanley 19Budzynski, M. 202Bullitt, William 32, 97, 218, 302-303, 313-314, 337, 349, 353-355, 359-361


493

Burckhardt, Carl J. 139, 192, 196, 199-200, 205, 209-210, 216, 220, 229, 235, 276, 329,354, 358, 412

Cadogan, Sir Alexander 207, 410Chamberlain, Sir Neville 35, 59, 78, 82, 98-99, 102-103, 106-113, 115, 123-127,139,189, 193, 228, 234, 255-257, 273, 278, 282-284, 286-289, 291-299, 301-303, 305- 308,319- 322, 324-325, 327, 333- 335, 3338-339, 342, 352-354, 359, 362-363, 385, 391-393,395, 401, 408-409, 412, 415, 425, 432-435, 437, 468Chatfield, Lord Alfred E. 263Chodacki, Marian 195, 198, 205, 209-210Churchill, Winston 27, 42, 44-51, 58, 67, 77, 89, 98-99, 112, 114, 120-121, 126, 139,247, 249, 254-255, 258, 262-264, 270-272, 274-280, 282-288, 291-292, 296, 308-309,311-313, 315, 320-321, 327, 333, 336-337, 339, 341, 343-345, 353, 361, 366-368, 387,394, 435, 437-438, 447, 462Chvalkowski, Frantisek 118, 123, 125, 131Ciechanowski, Jan 66Clemenceau, Georges 20, 135, 327, 439, 447, 450Colonna, Bertram de 148, 211Corbin, Charles 407-409Coulondre, Robert 85, 140-141, 196, 231, 408, 421Cranborne, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil Viscount 78Cripps, Sir Richard Stafford 386Croft, Sir Henry 109Cromwell, Oliver 54Cudahy, John Clarence 349Curtius, Julius 30, 146

D’Abernon of Esher, Lord Edgar V. 137Dahlerus, Birger 267, 385, 400, 403, 415-416, 418, 421, 424, 426-428, 431-432, 437-438, 467Daladier, Edouard 82, 102, 106, 109, 111, 113, 236, 287, 311, 354, 356, 362, 402, 424, 468Dalton, Hugh 336Davies, Joseph E. 66, 182Davis, William R. 365Dawes, Charles 348Dawson, William H. 272Delmer, Sefton 290Dieckhoff, Hans H. 351Dietrich, Otto 365-366Dirksen, Herbert von 293, 315, 328Dmowski, Roman 134-135, 139, 141-147, 154,158Dodd, Thomas 461Dollfuss, Engelbert 69Doomann, Eugene H. 361


494

Doumenc, Joseph 374, 386Drax, Sir Ernle 386Duff Cooper, Alfred 114, 277-278, 282, 286, 310, 315, 343

Eden, Anthony 74, 78, 114, 273-274, 279, 281-282, 284-285, 287, 293, 296, 315, 322, 333Eisenhower, Dwight D. 238Eisenlohr, Ernst 91, 94Elibank, Charles C. Murray Viscount 351Engel, Gerhard 492Exner, Prof. Franz 249

Fabricius, Wilhelm 298Faucher, Louis-Eugène 105Feiling, Keith 113, 139, 393Ferdinand, Francis Archduke, 108Fleming, A. 266Foch, Ferdinand 89Forrestal, James 363Forster, Albert 200, 203, 229, 232Franco, Francisco 211, 258François-Poncet, André 113, 240Freund, Michael 171, 239, 310, 458Fritsch, Werner Baron von 452-454Fuchs, Martin 76Fuller, John F.C. 52, 275, 361, 370

Gafencu, Grigore 132, 186, 298, 319Gamelin, Maurice 240Geist, Dr. Raymond H. 313Gercke, Rudolf 249Giertych, Jedrzei 146Gleason, S. Everett 249Gluchowski, Janusz 180Goebbels, Dr. Joseph 66Goerdeler, Carl Friedrich 221, 257, 339Göring, Hermann 34, 37, 72, 93, 113, 119, 214, 224, 365, 385-386, 393, 400-401, 403,415, 420-421, 424, 426-428, 431, 435, 437-438, 452-454, 456, 461, 467-468Goldmann, Nahum 358, 412Grabski, Stanislaw 139, 146, 156Graebe, K. 149Gravina, Manfredo 199Grazynski, Michal 129, 157, 162Greiser, Arthur 205-207


495

Grenfell, Russell 140, 310, 344Gröner, Wilhelm 176Grzybowski, Waclaw Count 85, 140, 267

Habsburg, Otto von, Archduke 194Hacha, Emil 127-131Halder, Franz 378, 456, 465-466, 470Halifax, Edward Wood Viscount 51, 85, 91, 102-103, 114, 123, 132, 140, 155, 189, 193,202, 204, 208-209, 235-236, 268, 271, 278-284, 287-291, 293-294, 296-301, 306-307,310-312, 316-317, 320, 322-323, 328-330, 332-340, 360, 386, 394-406, 408-411, 413,415-417, 422-423, 427, 429, 431-438Hassbach, Erwin 164Hedin, Sven 14, 369Henderson, Sir Nevile 81, 95, 102, 118, 126, 133, 192, 207-208, 224, 234, 282-283, 326,328-329, 331-333, 386, 391-392, 394, 396-398, 400-401, 403-410, 413-415, 417-421,426-428, 431, 433-434, 438Henlein, Konrad 90, 98, 100-101, 105-106Hess, Rudolf 163, 453Hesse, Fritz 279, 435Heuss, Theodor 53, 448Hilger, Gustav 387Hindenburg, Paul von 19, 32, 240Hiranuma, Kiichiro Baron 361Hlinka, Andrej 116Hoare, Sir Samuel 297Hodza, Milan 91-92, 101, 108Hoggan, David L. 29Hopkins, Harry 361, 366Horthy de Nagybánya, Miklós 121Hossbach, Friedrich 95, 451-455Howard, Esme W. Earl of Penrith 19Hudson, Robert 266, 288, 292Hull, Cordell 269, 313, 333, 336-337, 342, 351, 362, 441Hurtwood, Lord Clifford Allen 56

Innitzer, Theodor, Cardinal-Archbishop 81Ironside, Sir William 325

Jackson, Robert H. 441Jaksch, Wenzel 88Jebb, Gladwyn 193Jeschonnek, Hans 456Jodl, Alfred 80, 243, 249


496

Johnson 296Johnstone, Harcourt 336Jong, Louis de 163

Kaganovich, Lazar 29, 372Kasprzycki, Tadeusz 180Kaufmann, Theodore Nathan 42Keitel, Wilhelm 227, 388-390, 456, 459, 465Kennard, Sir Howard W. 168, 179, 189, 204, 236, 260, 281, 300-302, 305, 307, 323, 330-331, 337, 395-398, 401, 409-411, 422-423, 427, 429Kennedy, John F. 56Kennedy, Joseph 269, 333, 336-337, 352, 356, 359-360, 362-363Khrushtchev, Nikita S. 100, 374, 377Kilarski, Jan 151Kirkpatrick, Sir Ivone 193, 329, 436Kisielewski, Joseph 151Kitchener, Lord Horatio H. 256Klein, Burton 244Knappstein, Heinrich 28Kneeshaw, J.W. 18Koch, Erich 229Koch, Hans 163Konopnicka, Maria 150Kordt, Erich 339Kordt, Theo 339Korfanti, Wojciech 157Koscialkowski-Zyndram, Marian 150Küchler, Georg von 466Kwiatkowski, Eugeniusz 150

Lalicki, Stephan 149Langer, William L. 249Lansing, Robert 18, 136Lebre, Prof. Henri 170, 310Leeb, Wilhelm Ritter von 465Léger, Alexis 77Lenin, V. I. 100, 371, 373, 376, 447Leopold, Joseph 73Liddel-Hart, B.H. 237, 310Lindsay, Sir Ronald 364Lippmann, Walter 374Lipski, Joseph 107, 178, 183, 197, 207, 217-220, 222, 398, 410-411, 413, 420-421, 424,426-429, 432Litvinov, Maxim 99


497

Lloyd George, David 17, 20, 26, 28, 52-53, 136, 155, 238, 436-437, 447Lloyd, Lord George Ambrose 336Lochner, Louis P. 366, 467Loraine, Sir Percy 398Lothian, Lord Philip H. Kerr 275, 281, 342Louis XIV of France 270Lubomirski, Stephan Prince 208, 427Lück, Kurt 163Lukasiewicz, Juliusz 107, 120, 182, 189, 191-192, 303, 355, 359-360, 422

MacDonald, Malcolm 289Maisky, Ivan M. 40, 274, 292, 317, 377Makins, Roger 196Malhomme 421Manstein, Erich von 80, 389, 429, 463, 466Markoff, Alexei 379, 383Marlborough, John Churchill Duke of 270Marshall, George 369Martel, René 137, 148Masaryk, Thomas G. 116, 123, 129, 447Mastny, Vojtech 113, 118, 127Maugham, Frederic H. Viscount 84Maxwell-Fyfe, Sir David 462Meissner, Otto 127, 387Miklas, Wilhelm 79Mikolajczyk, Stanislaw 63, 65Milch, Erhard 388, 456, 459Miller, Douglas 347Milne, Lord Wardlaw 342Moltke, Hans-Adolf von 150, 178, 185Mooney, J.D. 366Moravec, Emanuel 96Morgenthau, Henry 42, 62, 350Moscicki, Ignaz 191Mussolini, Benito 40, 70, 72, 80 - 82, 124, 130, 281, 299, 312, 318, 324, 359-361, 389-390, 423-425, 435, 437, 460

Napoleon I Bonaparte 13, 270, 274, 437Naumann, Friedrich 56Neilson, Francis 50Neurath, Konstantin Baron von 32, 453Newton, Basil 91-92, 103, 118, 127Nikitchenko, I. T. 440


498

Nitti, Francesco 18, 439Noël, Léon 181, 187, 221, 230, 410, 427Northcliffe, Alfred Ch. Viscount 53Norton, Sir Clifford 328Nye, Gerald 369

Ogilvie-Forbes, Sir George 183, 313, 400, 421, 468

Paderewski, Ignacy 134, 142, 327Pal, Rahabinode 445Papen, Franz von 72, 75Paul-Boncour, Joseph 93Paul, Karadjordjevic, Prince-Regent of Yugoslavia 303Pechel, Rudolf 177Philip II of Spain 270, 274Phipps, Sir Eric 258, 320, 398Pieck, Wilhelm 372Pilsudski, Jozef 85, 135-136, 147-148, 150, 154-155, 157, 169, 174-177, 212, 273, 447Poincaré, Raymond 17, 308, 447Potocki, Jerzy Count 107, 206, 217-218, 353-354, 356, 363Potocki, Joseph 312Puaux, Gabriel 75-76

Raczynski, Edward Count 50, 107, 114, 154-155, 202, 209, 266, 278, 289, 306, 314, 335-336, 338, 398-399, 401-402, 435Raeder, Erich 254-255, 452-456, 460, 462-464, 467Raikes, Victor 109Randa, Krulis 129Reichenau, Walter von 264Renner, Karl 68, 81Reynaud, Paul 267Ribbentrop, Joachim von 56, 123, 153, 186, 213, 215, 218-219, 221-223, 225, 231, 269,276-277, 290, 294, 300, 385-387, 405, 407, 410, 412-413, 415, 417-420, 422, 424, 427-429, 433, 435, 449, 458Roberts, Sir Frank 438Roosevelt, Franklin Delano 23, 42, 44-46, 51, 63-64, 97, 106-108, 112, 123, 141, 168,218-219, 233, 248, 283, 285, 289, 292, 302, 316, 318, 325, 338, 342, 346, 348-355, 357-370, 425, 433, 439, 467Rothermere, Harold Harmsworth Viscount 53, 84Runciman, Lord Walter 93, 98-99, 101, 328, 335Rundstedt, Gerd von 466

Saint-Aulaire, Auguste de 308Sandys, Duncan 336, 435


499

Sargent, Sir Orme 332Sasonov, Sergei D. 146Schacht, Hjalmar 245, 366Scheidemann, Philipp 17Schleicher, Kurt von 177Schmidt, Guido 75Schmidt, Paul 407, 417-418Schmundt, Rudolf 455-457, 459Schniewindt, Otto 456Schuschnigg, Kurt von 69-70, 72-81, 94Seyss-Inquart, Arthur 79Shepherd, Sir Francis Michie 209, 304Shirer, William 346Siemers, Walter 462Sidor,Carl 119Sikorski, Wladislaw 156Simon, Sir John 126Sivory, Jan 102Skladkowski, Felicjan 170Skubl, Michael 73Smigly-Rydz, Edward 159, 181-182, 206-207, 214, 327, 420Smuts, Jan Chr. 135, 439Sosnkowski, Kazimierz 430-431Sosnowski, Georg 134-135, 142Srokowski, Stanislaw 139Stachiewitz, Waclaw 194Stalin, Josef 29, 46, 53, 60-61, 64, 84, 96, 99-100, 314-315, 322-324, 336, 339-340, 343,352, 354, 360, 372-380, 383, 386-388, 394, 438, 443, 447Strang, William 133, 193, 328Strasser, Otto 326Stresemann, Gustav 137, 154Sündermann, Helmut 230, 294Swinderen, René de Marees van 19Szembek, Jan Count 170, 190, 200, 213, 278, 349, 363, 403, 410

Tardieu, André 240Taylor, A.J.P. 39, 93, 236, 242, 278, 318, 345-346, 435, 446,Taylor, Telford 243Tilea, Virgil 228, 294-301Tiso, Dr. Joseph 117, 119, 124, 130Todt, Dr. Fritz 37Truman, Harry S. 66, 271, 276, 443Tuka, Prof. Dr.Vojtech 119, 126Umanski, Konstantin 363


500

Vachell, J.L. 304Vansittart, Sir Robert 40, 42, 114, 176, 240, 271, 273, 278-279, 294, 296, 315, 339, 341,343, 393Veesenmayer, Edmund 210Vlassov, Andrei A. 382-383Vollgruber, Alois 76Voroshilov, Klement I. 261, 374, 379

Wankowicz, Melchior 151Warlimont, Walter 456Warr, H. B. Sackville Earl de La 288Wasilewski, Leon 136, 147Wasylewski, Stanislaw 151Wedemeyer, Albert 369Weigand, Karl von 361Weizmann, Chaim 412-413Weizsäcker, Ernst von 166, 207, 218-220, 309, 328, 331, 339, 404-405, 410, 424, 430Welles, Sumner 342,Wheeler-Bennett, Sir John W. 154Wiesner, Rudolf 165Wilhelm II of Germany 25, 270, 274William III of Orange 270Wilson, Harold 346Wilson, Horace J. 363, 426, 435Wilson, Hugh 328, 354Wilson, Woodrow 19, 20, 116, 134-136, 139, 144-145, 158, 225Wirth, Joseph 176Woermann, Ernst von 218Wohltat, Helmut 298Wojciechowski, Stanislaw 146Wood, Robert 276Wszelaki, Jan 194

Young, Owen D. 348

Zaleski, M. 167Zarske 229Zetkin, Klara 372
